Entering The Presence of GOD by Derek Prince

ENTERING 

THE PRESENCE OF 

G O D 

D E R E K    P R I N C E

Contents 

Introduction 

Chapter One: Your Attitude In God's Presence 

Chapter Two: Our Appropriate Response 

Chapter Three:  In Spirit And In Truth 

Chapter Four: Your Body: Cleansed By The Blood  & Water 

Chapter Five: Your Soul: An Emotional  Approach To Worship 

Chapter Six: Your Spirit: The Way Into The Holiest 

Chapter Seven:  Four Blessings Of The New Covenant 

Chapter Eight:  Four Requirements Of True Worshipers 

Chapter Nine:  Our Physical Attitude Of Worship 

Chapter Ten:  The Inevitability Of Worship 

Chapter Eleven: Worshiping At The Throne 

About The Author

Introduction 

Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing throughout the '90s, 

something quite remarkable shaped the course of church history. 

A praise and worship revolution swept the body of Christ 

worldwide as names like Maranatha, Integrity Hosanna! Music, 

and Hillsong became household names. Believers by the millions 

pulled their noses out of dusty hymnals - and lifted faces, hands, 

and voices heavenward. A new breed of psalmists populated a 

fresh new songbook with "vertically oriented" hymns. And it 

wasn't just "corporate," or group, worship that bloomed in this 

spiritual spring. Countless quiet times got less ...well, quiet, and 

much more exciting as people discovered the power of private, 

personal praise. 

This revolution had a forerunner. Underlying and animating this 

extraordinary phenomenon was what became known as the 

worldwide Charismatic Renewal of the '60s and '70s - a move in 

which the work and person of the Holy Spirit were restored to the 

church in fullness. Wherever the Spirit was given latitude, He 

took people by the hand and led them into the healing, refreshing 

presence of the Father. 

In the middle of that historic charismatic movement was Derek 

Prince. 

If you are new to Derek Prince, you need to know that he is 

widely recognized as one of the truly great Christian minds of the 

twentieth century. He was a British citizen who lived most of the 

second half of his life in the United States and Israel. He was 

educated at England's prestigious Cambridge University where he 

was a contemporary of C. S. Lewis. (How many Bible teachers 

do you know who have held a fellowship in Ancient and Modern 

Philosophy at Cambridge?) 

In the autumn of 2003, Derek Prince died in his beloved 

Jerusalem - his home for nearly twenty years. He was eighty 

eight. 

As you are about to find out on the pages that follow, those 

amazing intellectual credentials didn't mean Derek's teaching was 

dry, abstract, or pedantic. He may have had the mind of a 

philosopher, but God gave him the soul of a free-spirited poet. 

You will find the teaching of Derek Prince to be inspiring, 

uplifting, practical, enlightening, always accessible - and never 

more so than on the important subjects of worship and fellowship 

with God. 

On one of his widely acclaimed radio broadcasts in the 1980s, 

Derek said: 

I've had the privilege of traveling and ministering in many 

different countries of the world, and I've been in many places that 

the Spirit of God was moving and where the Spirit of God was 

poured out and spiritual gifts were in operation. But I've been in 

few places where there was true, pure, anointed praise and 

worship offered to God. When you come to God in spiritual 

worship, you enter into fellowship with God. Through worship 

and fellowship you receive revelation. Though I'm not teaching 

this as a means of getting things from God, it is nevertheless true 

that when we approach God on the accepted basis with acceptable 

praise and worship, truly there is no limit to what God will do for 

us. 

Derek Prince was uniquely equipped to bring you truths and 

insights to help you properly and effectively enter God's holy 

presence; to explore deeper dimensions in worship; and to find 

intimacy, strength, power, and impartation in "the Most Holy 

Place." 

Get ready to discover how truly wonderful that place is. 

 -  Derek Prince Ministries

Chapter One 

Your Attitude In God's Presence 

Worship is one of the main themes of the Bible and something of 

tremendous importance in the life of the believer. Yet, most 

Christians do not have a clear grasp of the nature of worship. 

When most churchgoers talk about worship, they are referring to 

their Sunday morning worship service. They speak of hymns and 

choruses, and of the congregation standing and singing the 

planned music for the day. Unfortunately, I fear that in many of 

these churches very little worship is taking place. If this is the 

only frame of reference on the subject for the average believer, 

then they haven't even begun to worship. 

In this book, we will examine worship by looking beyond actions 

and behavior to where worship really takes place: within the 

heart. We will define concepts like praise, thanksgiving, and 

worship. We will identify the things that can hinder our worship. 

And we will describe the progression that will lead us, step by 

step, into the very presence of God where we may hear His voice 

and find rest in His arms. 

Our Offering 

Whenever we come into God's presence, He requires that we 

bring Him various gifts or sacrifices. These include, but are not 

limited to, money and material possessions. But, on a higher 

level, Scripture speaks of various spiritual gifts or sacrifices that 

God requires His followers to bring Him. 

These spiritual gifts are thanksgiving, praise, and worship.

When we come into God's presence, He requires that we bring 

gifts. 

We often use these terms interchangeably. I compare them to the 

colors of the rainbow which are distinct, yet also blend into one 

another with no absolute lines of demarcation. Likewise, 

thanksgiving, praise, and worship are distinct, but they naturally 

blend into one another. Here is how I distinguish them: 

Thanksgiving relates to God's goodness. 

Praise relates to God's greatness. 

Worship relates to God's holiness. 

Holiness is in a class by itself. It is the attribute of God that is 

most difficult for the human mind to comprehend because it has 

no parallel on earth. We can talk about the wisdom of God 

because we know wise people. We can talk about the greatness of 

God because we know great people. We can talk about the power 

of God because we have seen demonstrations of great power. But, 

apart from God, there is no earthly example of holiness - it is 

something unique to God and to those who have received it from 

Him. I believe that worship relates directly to God's holiness. But 

because it is hard to understand His holiness, it can be hard to 

fully understand and enter into worship. 

Therefore, worship is the most difficult of these three gifts or 

sacrifices for the believer to offer in a way that is acceptable to 

God. Thanksgiving and praise are primarily utterances of the 

mouth, but worship is primarily an attitude. Thus, it is important 

to have an understanding of these three terms if we are to be able 

to make them part of our offering to God.

Thanksgiving and praise are utterances, but worship is an 

attitude. 

Praise 

Praise runs like a golden thread throughout the entire Bible, from 

beginning to end. Praise is eternal; its origin is in heaven. It is the 

ceaseless occupation of all the glorious and eternal beings that 

inhabit heaven, where they enjoy close and uninterrupted access 

to God Himself. Uninterrupted access calls for uninterrupted 

praise. 

Praise is also associated with the earth since its beginning. In Job 

38, God challenged Job with this question: 

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the 

earth ?...When the morning stars sang together, and 

all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4, 7) 

What a beautiful picture of the beginning of the earth! It was 

praise that sent our planet first spinning on its celestial course, 

and it is the responsibility of God's people on this planet to see 

that praise continues to mark its course until heaven and earth are 

no more. 

Praise is the appropriate way that we relate to God as King on His 

throne. 

Yet Thou art holy, O Thou who art enthroned upon 

the praises of Israel. (Psalm 22:3 NASB) 

When combined with thanksgiving, praise gives us access to 

God. We see this in Psalm 100 where the psalmist said:

Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts 

with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. 

(Psalm 100:4 NASB) 

Here are two degrees of access. First, through God's gates, and 

then, through His courts. The psalmist indicates that it is 

thanksgiving that brings us through the gates, but praise brings us 

into the courts. This is also beautifully illustrated in Isaiah where 

the prophet said to God's people: 

Violence will not be heard again in your land, nor 

devastation or destruction within your borders; but 

you will call your walls salvation, and your gates 

praise. (Isaiah 60:18 NASB) 

God dwells in a place of perfect peace and tranquility. Not only is 

there no violence or destruction, but there are not even the sounds 

of violence or destruction. But notice the way of access: all the 

gates are praise. In other words, the only way into the place of 

God's presence and dwelling is through praise. Without praise, we 

do not have access into the outer courts. 

Thanksgiving 

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which 

cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may 

serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 

(Hebrews 12:28) 

Here in the New King James Version it says, "let us have grace." 

But the New International Version translates the same verse 

differently:

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that 

cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship 

God acceptably with reverence and awe. (NIV) 

Actually, each one is a correct translation. In Greek, "to have 

grace" - the key word is charis - is the same as saying "thank 

you." There is a direct connection between grace and 

thankfulness. An unthankful person is a person who is outside the 

grace of God. You cannot be unthankful and be found within the 

grace of God. 

Three of the world's Romance languages, those based on Latin, 

all retain a direct connection between grace and thankfulness. In 

French, grace a Dieu means, "thanks to God." In Italian, the word 

for "thank you" is grazie. In Spanish, it is gracias. You cannot 

separate thankfulness from the grace of God. When we say 

"grace" before a meal, we are really saying "let us be thankful." 

There is a beautiful passage in Psalm 95 that depicts the progress 

into worship. It begins with loud, jubilant praise - a lot louder 

than some churches would permit. 

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout 

joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1) 

Thanksgiving and praise. There is no other way into the presence 

of God. 

This does not mean loud singing - shouting means shouting. I like 

that. I think that if there is one thing that is hard for God to 

accept, it is halfhearted praise. Scripture says, "Great is the 

LORD, and greatly to be praised" (Psalm 145:3). In fact, if you 

are not prepared to praise Him greatly, don't do it at all.

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; 

let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. (Psalm 95:2) 

Notice again the two stages of access: thanksgiving and praise. 

There is no other way into the presence of God. The next three 

verses give us the reason why we should praise and thank God. 

The Bible is very logical. It does not just ask us to thank and 

praise God; it tells us why. 

For the LORD is the great God, and the great King 

above all gods. (Psalm 95:3) 

Remember I said that it is by praise that we acknowledge God's 

greatness. So here the word great is used twice. The Lord is "the 

great God, and the great King above all gods." We acknowledge 

His greatness by loud, jubilant, and excited praise. Then we see 

Him as the mighty Creator. 

In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the 

heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He 

made it, and His hands formed the dry land. 

(Psalm 95:4-5) 

The only response to a revelation of the holiness of God is 

worship. 

So we come to Him thanking Him, praising Him for the marvels 

of His creation. But that is only our way of access. In verse six 

we come to worship. Praise and thanksgiving are really our way 

of approach into worship. Then notice, as soon as we come to 

worship, it is an attitude.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel 

before the LORD our Maker. (Psalm 95:6) 

Here we have passed from utterance into attitude. We began with 

praise and thanksgiving, but that wasn't the end or goal. When 

Christians stop with praise and thanksgiving, they have really 

missed the goal: true worship - which is not an utterance but an 

attitude. 

Worship 

When you come into contact with, become aware of, or have a 

revelation of the holiness of God, there is only one appropriate 

response: worship. Without such a revelation, we cannot really 

have worship. We can have a song service, but we do not enter 

into worship until we have a revelation, however inadequate it 

may be, of the holiness of God. And the holiness of God is not to 

be explained. It cannot be defined. It can only be revealed. 

This is very important because I think many Christians have the 

idea that holiness is a set of rules about where you may go, what 

you may do, and how you may talk and dress. That has nothing to 

do with holiness. Paul was very emphatic about that in 

Colossians: 

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic 

principles of the world, why, as though living in the 

world, do you subject yourselves to regulations; "Do 

not touch, do not taste, do not handle," which all 

concern things which perish with the using; according 

to the commandments and doctrines of men? These 

things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self- 

imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the 

body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the 

flesh. (Colossians 2:20-23) 

This is so profoundly true. The more you focus on the things you 

must not do, the more power they have over you. You think to 

yourself, Don't lose your temper; whatever you do, don't lose 

your temper. What is the next thing you do? You lose your 

temper, because you are focusing on the wrong thing. No wonder 

many people have decided that they want nothing to do with 

holiness. 

Hebrews 12 speaks about the discipline that God as a Father has 

for His children: 

For they [our human fathers] indeed for a few days 

chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our 

profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 

(Hebrews 12:10) 

Holiness is not a set of do's and don'ts. God is not holy because 

He has a set of rules in front of Him in order to check His own 

conduct. Rules have nothing to do with biblical or divine 

holiness. 

Attributes Of God 

Holiness is the essence of what God is. Everything about God is 

holy. Thus, in order to have an understanding of holiness, we 

need to have an understanding of who God is and what He is like. 

Allow me, therefore, to outline some of the attributes of God - 

what the Bible says God is. 

God Is Light

This is the message which we have heard from Him 

and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no 

darkness at all. (1 John 1:5) 

God is light. He not only creates light or sends light forth, but He 

Himself is light. 

God Is Love 

He who does not love does not know God, for God is 

love....And we have known and believed the love that 

God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love 

abides in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:8, 16) 

God is both light and love. There is a tension between light and 

love. Light can scare you; love draws you. I think there is a 

similar tension in our relationship with God. We want to draw 

close to Him, but we feel uncomfortable entering into that all- 

encompassing light. 

God Is Justice And Judgment 

This is absolutely a part of His nature. In Deuteronomy, Moses 

emphasized this: 

For I proclaim the name of the LORD: ascribe 

greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is 

perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth 

and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. 

(Deuteronomy 32:3-4)

God is the Judge of all the earth, and He always does right. 

Many people accuse God of injustice in their particular situation 

or circumstances. But the Bible says there is no injustice in God. 

He is totally just; a God of truth. Consider the words of Abraham 

in Genesis when he was pleading with the Lord about Sodom: 

Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay 

the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous 

should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not 

the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25) 

That is who God is. He is the Judge of all the earth, and He 

always does right. There is no injustice, no iniquity within Him. 

We are often tempted to believe that God is unjust, but Scripture 

declares emphatically that this couldn't be further from the truth. 

God Is Anger And Wrath 

This is something that contemporary Christianity hardly makes 

room for but is very important. Our God is a God of anger and 

wrath. Nahum gives a remarkable picture of this: 

God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; the LORD 

avenges and is furious. The LORD will take 

vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath 

for His enemies. (Nahum 1:2) 

The Lord is angry. He is furious and He avenges Himself. This is 

part of God's divine, eternal nature. If we leave this part out, we 

are not presenting a true picture of God. The book of Revelation 

gives us a glimpse of God's judgment that will befall the 

antichrist: 

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud 

voice, "If anyone worships the beast and his image, 

and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, 

he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of 

God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of 

His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and 

brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the 

presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment 

ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or 

night, who worship the beast and his image, and 

whoever receives the mark of his name." 

(Revelation 14:9-11) 

"Tormented... in the presence of the Lamb." Not exactly the 

contemporary picture of the gentle Jesus, meek and mild. But it is 

a part of His divine, eternal character. God is a judge. Some 

believe that God is far too merciful to impose eternal punishment 

on anybody. That is not scriptural. And furthermore, it is very 

dangerous. 

For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the 

prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, 

God will add to him the plagues that are written in 

this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of 

the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 

part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and 

from the things which are written in this book. 

(Revelation 22:18-19)

One of God's greatest attributes is His covenant-keeping 

faithfulness. 

If anything is clearly written in the book of Revelation, it is that 

there is eternal judgment. We are reaching a stage in society 

where we are much kinder to the criminal than to the victim. 

Why? Because we do not want to be judgmental. Why don't we 

want to be judgmental? I believe it is because, in our hearts, we 

know that if there is judgment for someone else, then there is 

judgment for us. 

God Is Mercy And Lovingkindness 

The word in Scripture that is translated as "lovingkindness" 

means "steadfast love." In studying this, I have come to the 

conclusion that what it really means is the "covenant-keeping 

faithfulness of God." It is God's faithfulness to His covenant - one 

of His greatest attributes. 

In Psalm 51, David was praying during a time of deep distress, 

when his soul was hanging in the balance. It was his prayer of 

repentance after his sin with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah had 

been uncovered. 

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your 

lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your 

tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 

51:1) 

“According to Your lovingkindness" is a reference to God's 

covenant-keeping faithfulness. David was basically saying, "You 

have committed Yourself to forgive if I meet the conditions. I am 

appealing to You on that basis." How important it is to be able to 

approach God on that basis! This idea occurs in various other 

psalms as well. 

Praise the LORD! Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for 

He is good! For His mercy [His lovingkindness, His 

faithfulness to His covenant] endures forever. (Psalm 

106:1) 

God Is Grace 

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, 

that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in 

time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) 

There are two things in this passage that you cannot earn: mercy 

and grace. We first need mercy, but then we need grace. Grace 

cannot be earned. Religious people have a real problem because 

they think they have to earn everything. Consequently, they tend 

to turn down the grace of God. "Let us therefore come boldly to 

the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to 

help in time of need." We need mercy for the past and grace for 

the future. It is only by God's grace that we can become the kind 

of people, and live the kind of lives, that He requires of us. 

God Is Power 

The whole Bible is full of testimonies to God's power. Let's look 

at just one example in the Psalms: 

The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; the 

LORD is clothed, He has girded Himself with 

strength. Surely the world is established, so that it 

cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of 

old; You are from everlasting. The floods have lifted 

up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the 

floods lift up their waves. The LORD on high is 

mightier than the noise of many waters, than the 

mighty waves of the sea. (Psalm 93:1-4) 

Holiness Is The Total Being Of God 

Only by God's grace can we become the kind of people He 

requires. 

Let me just recapitulate the seven attributes of God: (1) light; (2) 

love; (3) justice and judgment; (4) anger and wrath; (5) mercy 

and lovingkindness; (6) grace; and (7) power. I believe God's 

holiness is all of that. It is the total being of God. Holy is the only 

word that is used three times of God in the same sentence, in both 

the Old and New Testaments. In Isaiah the seraphim cry, Holy, 

holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His 

glory! (Isaiah 6:4) 

And in Revelation, the living creatures and the elders fall down 

and cry, 

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is 

and is to come! (Revelation 4:8) 

I believe there is significance in the threefold repetition. I think 

holy is the Father; holy is the Son; holy is the Spirit. And no one 

else is holy. God is unique in His holiness. And we can only 

understand or become partakers of holiness insofar as we relate to 

God. 

Worship is our response to the holiness of God. Again, when 

there is no revelation of holiness, there can be no worship. You 

can have a nice song service. You can have praise and 

thanksgiving. But you cannot have worship. For when we know 

the holiness of God in any measure whatsoever, the appropriate 

response is always worship. 

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His 

courts with praise. (Psalm 100:4) 

We thank God because we are grateful for what He has done. 

When we praise Him, we are acknowledging His greatness, but 

that is not the end. Many of us stop there. We have entered into 

the courts, but what are we there for? We are there to worship. If 

we stop after a praise song, we may have had a good time, but we 

haven't really found the heart and the purpose of God. There is 

something crying out for more. We desire the presence of the 

Lord. We yearn to be in direct contact with the living God and to 

offer Him the only thing we have to offer, our worship. So let's 

continue our journey and ask the Lord if, by His grace, He will 

enable us to enter into His presence. For when we are in His 

presence, we will begin to truly worship.

Chapter Two 

Our Appropriate Response 

Psalms provide us with such an incredibly clear and beautiful 

picture of true worship. Let's dwell once more on rich and 

powerful language of Psalm 95: 

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout 

aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before 

him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and 

song. For the LORD is the great God, the great King 

above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, 

and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, 

for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before 

the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are 

the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. 

(Psalm 95:1-7 NIV) 

There are three successive phases here that I want to examine. 

First, in verses one and two we have loud exuberant praise and 

thanksgiving: "Let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with 

music and song." That is loud, exuberant praise and thanksgiving. 

It is a prelude of sorts. 

Then, in verses three through five, the psalmist gives us reasons 

for praise and thanksgiving. As we have already learned, we 

thank God for what He does. We praise Him for who He is. Both 

reasons are included in verse three, "For the LORD is the great 

God." Elsewhere in Psalms it says, "Great is the LORD, and 

greatly to be praised" (Psalm 145:3). His praise must be related to 

His greatness. Psalm 95 reminds us of what God did, "The sea is 

His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land" (Psalm 

95:5). 

The great enemy of worship is self-centeredness. 

When we come to God in this way, with praise and thanksgiving, 

our vision becomes focused on God. This is essential for worship, 

because the great enemy of worship is self-centeredness. As long 

as we are all wrapped up in ourselves and our own problems and 

the things that are going on all around us, we are not in a position 

to worship God. 

As I stated in the last chapter, the third phase is found in verses 

six and seven, where worship is expressed in attitude. 

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before 

the LORD our Maker. (Psalm 95:6 NIV) 

Let me point out two things about these verses. First of all, 

worship sets us apart as God's people. The reason given for 

worshiping is, "For he is our God and we are the people of His 

pasture" (Psalm 95:7 NIV). By worshiping God, we declare, by 

that act, just who is our God. The one whom we worship 

necessarily and inevitably must be our God. As I will point out 

later, that is why it is so important that we worship Him and no 

other. Worship sets us apart as God's people. 

Second, worship is our appropriate response to God's tender love 

and care for us. "We are... the flock under his care" (Psalm 95:7 

NIV). 

Results Of Worship

I want to continue in Psalm 95 to what I believe describes the two 

results of worship and, eventually, the price of failing to worship. 

Today, if you will hear His voice: "Do not harden your 

hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the 

wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried 

Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was 

grieved with that generation, and said, `It is a people 

who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know 

My ways.' So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not 

enter My rest."' (Psalm 95:7-11) 

By the act of worship, we declare just who is our God. 

Here we see two results of true worship, of bowing down and 

kneeling in the Lord's presence. First, we hear God's voice. We 

pass from that stage of loud, exuberant praise and thanksgiving 

into a stage of inner rest, tranquility, and quietness where 

everything is hushed, where we are still in the presence of God. 

In that attitude of worship, we can hear God's voice in a way that 

we can never hear when we are taken up with ourselves and our 

own problems and perplexities. One of the essential things about 

worship is focusing on the Lord, turning away from ourselves - as 

it were, almost merging our identity in His. 

It is vital to be able to hear God's voice. In Jeremiah, God 

emphatically declared to His people, 

This is what I commanded them, saying, "Obey My 

voice, and I will be your God." (Jeremiah 7:23)

You cannot follow Jesus if you don't hear His voice. 

That is the simplest statement I know of what God requires. 

"Obey My voice, and I will be your God." Deuteronomy 28 lists 

all the blessings of obedience, and all of the curses of 

disobedience. The blessings begin, "If you diligently obey the 

voice of the LORD your God,...all these blessings shall come 

upon you" (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). The curses begin, "If you do 

not obey the voice of the LORD your God,...all these curses will 

come upon you" (Deuteronomy 28:15). The watershed is 

listening or not listening to the voice of the Lord. 

Not to shock you, but it is not enough to just read our Bibles. In 

John it says, "My sheep hear My voice,...and they follow Me" 

(John 10:27). You cannot follow Jesus if you do not hear His 

voice. It is good to read the Bible, but you can do so without ever 

hearing the voice of the Lord. I believe that worship is the 

appointed way to come into that attitude and relationship where 

we really are able to hear God's voice. 

The second result is that we enter into His rest. Worshiping and 

hearing God's voice bring us into a rest that is not possible in any 

other way. Only those who really know how to worship can really 

enjoy His rest. (Rest is very rare among contemporary 

Americans. They are a restless, nervous bunch of people.) 

There remains, then, a Sabbath - rest for the people of 

God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from 

his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, 

therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that 

no one will fall by following their example of 

disobedience. (Hebrews 4:9-11 NIV) 

Let us consider for a moment the issue of Sabbath rest. I do not 

preach legalism. I do not believe that Christians are under the 

Law of Moses. In Romans, we are reminded that, "Christ is the 

end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" 

(Romans 10:4). Christ's death terminated the law - not in its other 

aspects, but as a means to obtain righteousness. We do not 

achieve righteousness by keeping the Law of Moses, and, 

therefore, I personally do not believe that Christians are required 

to observe the Sabbath as the Jewish people do. 

Besides, even if you could convince me that Sunday was the 

Sabbath (the Sabbath is to be the seventh day of the week, while 

Sunday is the first day of the week), we would all be horrible 

Sabbath breakers. On the Sabbath you are not allowed to kindle 

any kind of fire, switch on a light, turn on a stove, or travel more 

than a minimal distance. Most of us break the Sabbath merely by 

going to church! 

But the Scripture says, "There remains therefore a rest for the 

people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). I have come to believe that I am 

not pleasing God if I am busy all seven days of the week. 

The first thing God ever sanctified was time. He sanctified the 

seventh day. Before He sanctified a place or anything else He 

sanctified time. I believe time still needs to be sanctified. God 

said to Israel, "Every seventh year you are not to plant anything." 

(See, for example, Exodus 23:11.) Do you know what that is? It is 

a test of faith. What are we going to eat, God? "I'll take care of 

that; you let the land rest." Israel failed. They did not do it. Some 

centuries later God said, "All right. Your land didn't have its 

Sabbath; I'm going to change that. You are going into captivity. 

You will make up for all the Sabbaths that you failed to keep." 

I ask you, Do you know what it is to rest? 

I believe that God deals with believers like that, too. Some never 

rest, week after week, day after day, working away at the same 

pace, never sanctifying time to God. Eventually, they will make 

up for all that missed Sabbath with time spent in the hospital. 

So I ask you, Do you know what it is to rest? Are you capable of 

disciplining yourself to stop doing things, even doing them 

mentally? Can you ever lie down and stop thinking about what 

you ought to be doing? I'm afraid that many of us don't even 

know what rest is. 

This has been a new concept for me: learning to worship, and 

learning to rest. I find that they are very closely related. I believe 

in thanking God and praising Him out loud with dancing, 

clapping, and singing. But there comes a time when we need to 

bow down and become quiet. Today, if you will hear His voice, 

do not harden your heart. Don't miss His rest. 

Results Of Failing To Worship 

Israel, as a people, failed to accept God's call to worship. If we go 

back and look at Psalm 95, we will see the results of their failure. 

Today, if you will hear His voice: "Do not harden your 

hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the 

wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried 

Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was 

grieved with that generation, and said, `It is a people 

who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know 

My ways.' So I swore in My wrath, `They shall not 

enter My rest."' (Psalm 95:7-11) 

What were the results of Israel's failure to worship? First, their 

hearts were hardened. Second, they did not hear God's voice. 

Third, they provoked God to anger. And fourth, they did not enter

into their appointed rest. They failed to follow the steps of praise 

and thanksgiving that lead us into bowing and kneeling down, an 

attitude of stillness, of hushed reverent quietness before God in 

which we hear His voice, and through which we enter into our 

appointed rest. 

In 1 Kings 19, it is recorded that Elijah had been running away 

from Jezebel. He took refuge in the desert and then he made the 

long journey to Mt. Horeb, the place where God originally made 

His covenant with the children of Israel. When Elijah was on Mt. 

Horeb, the Lord spoke to him, and he went through a number of 

dramatic experiences before receiving a fresh revelation of the 

Lord. 

The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain 

in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about 

to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the 

mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the 

LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the 

wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not 

in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, 

but the LORD was not in the fire. 

(1 Kings 19:11-12 NIV) 

That is what I call a prelude to worship: the wind, the earthquake, 

and the fire. Such tremendous, tumultuous noise and excitement, 

but it was not worship. 

And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 

(1 Kings 19:12 NIV) 

The Amplified Bible says, "a sound of gentle stillness." That is 

what I want you to associate with worship: a sound of gentle 

stillness. 

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his 

face. (1 Kings 19:13 NIV) 

What is that? That is worship. Just as angels and seraphs are 

portrayed in Scripture as covering their faces and their feet with 

their wings in the presence of God, Elijah covered his own face. 

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face 

and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then 

a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, 

Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:13 NIV) 

Elijah came into that place of stillness and reverence in God's 

presence where God could speak to him. In that attitude, Elijah 

heard God's whisper, which he wasn't able to hear in any other 

way. And, through hearing God's voice, if you read the account 

that follows, he received new direction and strength. He went out 

a man renewed with a new purpose, new faith, and new courage. 

He had entered into his rest through worship.

Chapter Three 

In Spirit And In Truth 

Jesus stated the condition of the heart that alone makes our 

worship acceptable to God in His conversation with the 

Samaritan woman at the well. The woman began to talk about the 

rival claims of Jerusalem and Samaria as centers of worship. But 

when she began to discuss the claims of these two physical, 

geographical locations, Jesus turned the conversation in a new 

and unexpected direction. 

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is 

coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in 

Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you 

do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation 

is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, 

when the true worshipers will worship the Father in 

spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to 

worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship 

Him must worship in spirit and truth." (John 4:21-24) 

The words of Jesus to that woman were prophetic. Within a 

hundred years of that conversation the temple in Jerusalem was 

destroyed and it became impossible for the Jewish people to 

worship there. However, before the temple was destroyed, God 

made alternative provision for His people to worship Him. He 

transferred the requirements from a physical location to a 

spiritual condition. The spiritual condition that Jesus stated was 

"in spirit and truth."

God actually seeks worshipers of this kind. This, to me, is one of 

the most exciting and amazing statements in the Bible: that 

almighty God is seeking for people to worship Him. Jesus said, 

"The Father is looking for worshipers of this kind, the kind that 

worship in `spirit and in truth."' 

Almighty God is seeking people to worship Him. 

Let us look at these two spiritual, inward conditions that Jesus 

mentioned. In doing so, I'd like to start with the latter 

requirement: "in truth." 

Worshiping "In Truth" 

Revelation gives us quite a list of people who will ultimately be 

excluded from God's presence. 

But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, 

murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and 

all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns 

with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. 

(Revelation 21:8) 

Notice the last item on this list: "all liars." Liars cannot have 

access to the presence of almighty God. That is why we have to 

worship Him "in truth." There is a vivid example of this in the 

story of Ananias and Sapphira found in Acts 5. They sold some 

land and brought an offering from what they had sold and laid it 

at the feet of the apostles. Unfortunately, this offering was not the 

entire price of the land that they claimed it to be. They had kept 

back part of the sum. And that cost them both their lives. They 

just fell down dead one after the other in the presence of God. 

(See Acts 5:1-11.) Could there be a clearer warning to us that lies 

and insincerity cannot have access to the presence of God?

Again, in 1 John, this is what the apostle John said: 

This is the message which we have heard from Him 

and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no 

darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with 

Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 

the truth. (1 John 1:5-6) 

When we come to God, we are coming into the light. There is no 

room for darkness, no room for reservations, and no room for 

insincerity. Everything has to be totally open. Notice the phrase, 

"we have fellowship with Him." Fellowship and worship go 

closely together. Both fellowship and worship require 

unwavering honesty, sincerity, and openness. We must worship 

God "in truth." 

Worshiping "In Spirit" 

To understand what it means to worship God "in spirit," we need 

to grasp the picture that the Bible provides of the total human 

personality. According to Scripture, the total human personality 

consists of three interrelated elements: spirit, soul, and body. This 

is the picture from a prayer by the apostle Paul for the 

Thessalonian church: 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you 

completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body 

be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord 

Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23) 

We know what the body is. The soul is the ego - it is the attribute 

that says "I will" or "I will not," and "I think" or "I do not think." 

It is usually identified as being made of three areas: the will, the 

intellect, and the emotion. These areas are expressed as three 

simple statements: "I will," "I think," and "I feel." This is 

extremely simplified, but I think it is a valid picture of the soul in 

man. 

The spirit has one supreme function to relate to God. 

But the spirit really has only one supreme function to relate to 

God. It is not the soul or the body that must worship God, but the 

spirit. But we cannot really understand worship unless we 

understand the functions and interrelationships of these three 

elements. 

In Psalm 103, David said, "Bless the LORD, O my soul" (verse 

1). What or who was talking to David's soul? His soul wasn't 

talking to itself. So who was telling David's soul to "bless the 

LORD?" It was David's spirit. His spirit was on fire because it 

was in contact with God. His spirit was saying, "We have got to 

do something about this. Do not just sit there; do something. Get 

excited. Bless the Lord." The soul is the gear shift of the 

personality; the soul makes decisions and then orders the body to 

move. That is the order of things; the spirit deals with the soul, 

then the soul deals with the body. 

Let's look back for a moment to the account of the creation of 

man as recorded in the second chapter of Genesis: 

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the 

ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of 

life; and man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7) 

There are two distinct sources to human personality. One is from 

above; one is from below. From above there is the breath, the 

Spirit of God, breathed into man. From below there is man's 

physical nature, the body made of clay. The union of spirit and 

clay produces a living soul, a human personality consisting of 

spirit, soul, and body. 

But when man sinned and rebelled against God, his spirit was cut 

off from fellowship with God and became dead to God. So man 

was then, in biblical terminology, "dead in trespasses and sins" 

(Ephesians 2:1). 

When man turns back to God in repentance and faith, by rebirth, 

his spirit is renewed and made capable of restored fellowship 

with God. Once again, we see the principle that fellowship and 

worship go very closely together. But we have to understand that 

it is the spirit of man, not the soul nor the body, that is capable of 

this direct fellowship with God. 

So it is through the reborn spirit that man can relate directly to 

God, person to Person, spirit to Spirit. Jesus said, "God is Spirit, 

and those who worship Him must worship in spirit...." (John 

4:24). It is only that same inbreathed element of human 

personality that comes from God, that spirit, which is able to 

relate to God directly and to worship God "in spirit." 

Read the words of the apostle Paul: 

Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is 

one body with her? For "the two... shall become one 

flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit 

with Him. (1 Corinthians 6:16-17) 

Paul was talking about two different ways of one person uniting 

with another. One is the fleshly way, sexual union: a man with a 

woman. But the other is a spiritual way, a spiritual union: the 

spirit of man with the Spirit of God. That is an amazing picture, 

but it is very clear. Just as intimately as a man can relate with a 

woman physically in sexual intercourse, so a believer can relate 

with the Lord spiritually in the communion of worship; that is, 

worshiping God in spirit. Worship is communion with God. It is 

intimate fellowship with God. It is direct union with God. 

Worship is communion with God - intimate fellowship and direct 

union. 

Neither man's soul nor his body is capable of that. It is only man's 

spirit that is capable of this unique and most precious of all 

relationships with God, the relationship of union and communion 

that comes through worship. This is the highest activity of which 

man is capable - worshiping God in spirit and in truth. 

We must get our entire personality in tune with God and 

responding to Him, as He desires. Your spirit must work through 

your soul to move your body. That is the way that it works. 

Therefore, when your spirit wants to worship God, there is not 

much it can do without the cooperation of the soul and the body. 

And a spirit that cannot worship God because the soul and the 

body do not cooperate is an imprisoned spirit. The body for that 

spirit is a prison, shut up, unable to respond. 

That is the problem with many Christians. We give them the 

Word, but we give them a very incomplete picture of church and 

of worship. So now when people do experience the real thing 

they feel strange because we've conditioned people to expect the 

abnormal. 

Fortunately for us, God has provided a road map of sorts to 

worship. He has given us a model to follow that will lead us into 

worship, and therefore into His presence. This model is "the 

tabernacle."

Chapter Four 

Your Body: Cleansed By 

 The Blood And Water 

The tabernacle of Moses is one of the most remarkable 

phenomena of Scripture and one that has always fascinated me. It 

is described primarily in the book of Exodus, chapters twenty- 

five to thirty, and thirty-five to forty. The fact that God dedicates 

about twelve chapters of the book of Exodus to the tabernacle 

indicates to me that it must have tremendous importance. 

Every time I study the tabernacle I am left with a deep desire for 

holiness and for communion with God. That is the result it has on 

me, and I am sure it is one of the main purposes for which this 

account is presented in Scripture. 

The Way Into The Holiest 

The way into perfection, to maturity, to completeness, and to 

fulfillment is the way into the holiest, which unfolds in Hebrews 

as in no other book of the New Testament. Here we see that it is 

scriptural to use the tabernacle as our pattern in seeking God. 

Indeed, the very phrase "the way into the holiest" (Hebrews 9:8) 

is taken from the type or pattern of the tabernacle. 

For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, 

since there are priests who offer the gifts according to 

the law; who serve the copy and shadow of the 

heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed 

when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He 

said, "See that you make all things according to the 

pattern shown you on the mountain." (Hebrews 8:4-5) 

The tabernacle reveals a pattern of the way into the presence of 

almighty God. 

Right there in verse five are the words that indicate that the 

tabernacle is our example, or "the copy and shadow of the 

heavenly things." It is a material reality that reflects an unfolding 

spiritual truth. Then, in Hebrews 9, it is mentioned again: 

Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the 

things in the heavens should be purified with these, 

but the heavenly things themselves with better 

sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the 

holy places made with hands, which are copies of the 

true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the 

presence of God for us. (Hebrews 9:23-24) 

The tabernacle reveals for us a pattern of the way into the holiest, 

into the presence of almighty God. It is not a matter of groping, 

or speculating, or simply doing what we please or think. There is 

an absolutely prescribed way of access into the holiest, and it is 

revealed to us in terms of the various divisions and the various 

items of furniture along the way. 

The tabernacle was a structure consisting of three main sections: 

the outer court; the Holy Place, behind the first veil or curtain; 

and the Holy of Holies, behind the second veil or curtain. It was a 

triune structure: one structure with three areas. This structure was 

significant in many ways. It depicted the nature of God - Father, 

Son, and Holy Spirit. It depicted the nature of the heavenlies  -  

Scripture refers to Paul being caught up into the third heaven. 

(See 2 Corinthians 12:2.) It also depicted the nature of man - 

body, soul, and spirit. 

One way to distinguish these three areas was by the kind of light 

that was available. In the outer court the light was natural: the sun 

by day, the moon and stars by night. In the Holy Place behind the 

first veil, the light was artificial. It was provided by a seven- 

branched lampstand. But in the Holy of Holies, behind the second 

veil or curtain, there was no natural light and no artificial light. 

The only light was supplied by the supernatural presence of 

almighty God indwelling that small area within the tent. That 

presence of God that brings light is known in Hebrew as the 

shekinah, meaning "to dwell" - the visible glory of God. It was 

the only source of light there in the Holy of Holies, the third area 

of the tabernacle. It was the manifest indwelling of almighty God 

in the midst of His people. 

These three sections of the tabernacle correspond to many aspects 

of our experience, but I want to relate them to the three areas of 

human personality I mentioned earlier: the body, the soul, and the 

spirit. As I said, we worship God not with the body or with the 

soul, but with the spirit. So, the outer court corresponds to the 

body. The Holy Place corresponds to the soul. And the Holy of 

Holies corresponds to the spirit. It is only in the spirit that we 

relate to God in worship; therefore, the ultimate area of worship 

is the Holy of Holies behind the second veil. 

So, how does a person progress into worship? By following the 

pattern found in the progression in the tabernacle from the outer 

court into the Holy of Holies. 

The Outer Court 

It is only in the spirit that we relate to God in worship. 

When approaching the tabernacle, one always began in the outer 

court. Likewise, when approaching God, we always begin in the 

physical, natural realm. This area relates to the body and to the 

life of Christ in the days when Jesus was on earth. He walked the 

streets of Galilee and Jerusalem as a human being who could be 

seen, touched, and heard by the natural senses. Thus, in the outer 

court we receive revelation through the natural senses, or through 

human knowledge. 

In the tabernacle's outer court, the first object one would see was 

the great bronze altar. A teacher once told me that all its sides 

were covered in polished bronze, so the moment you approached 

and looked at it, you saw yourself. This altar was where all of the 

sacrificial animals were slaughtered and offered to God. For us, 

the bronze altar represents Christ's sacrificial death on our behalf. 

It speaks of the blood that He shed, so that we might be redeemed 

and reconciled unto God. That is the starting point. We cannot 

bypass the cross. Only when we begin at the cross and receive the 

benefits of the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf - the benefits of 

His shed blood - can we move on in our progression of worship. 

Four Sides Of The Bronze Altar 

The bronze altar had four sides, representing four distinct 

provisions of God made through the death of Jesus on the cross. 

The first one is forgiveness of past sins. That is essential. When 

your sins are unforgiven, you cannot progress any further. This is 

also stated in Romans: 

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, 

through faith, to demonstrate His [God's] 

righteousness, because in His forbearance God had 

passed over the sins that were previously committed. 

(Romans 3:25)

The next side represents the taking away of sin. There is an 

important distinction between sins in the plural (sinful acts that 

have been committed), and sin as a spiritual power (an evil, 

corrupt, enslaving force that causes you to sin, or to commit 

sinful acts). Sin is the source of sins. When we deal with sins, we 

are only dealing with the branches of the tree. That does not deal 

with the trunk that feeds all of the branches of sins. In 2 

Corinthians, it says, 

For He made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin 

for us, that we might become the righteousness of God 

in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

There is an exchange that occurs. Jesus was made sin, with all 

our sinfulness, so that in return, we might be made righteous with 

all His righteousness. That is not sins, but sin that is dealt with 

there. We read in Hebrews, 

He then would have had to suffer often since the 

foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of 

the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the 

sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26) 

Christ only suffered once because by that suffering, He did 

everything that ever needed to be done. 

The third side of the altar is our old, corrupt nature - the rebel that 

is inside each one of us. "Our old man was crucified with Him" 

(Romans 6:6). The Greek here is in the past tense. It is a 

historical fact. It is true whether you know it or not. But if you 

don't know it you won't benefit from it.

Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of 

sin might be done away with, that we should no longer 

be slaves of sin. (Romans 6:6) 

Sin was rendered inoperative; it no longer was capable of 

asserting itself. The only escape from the slavery of sin is through 

the death of the old, sinful nature. The old man is such a hopeless 

case that God has no remedy for him. God cannot send him to 

church or teach him the Ten Commandments or make him 

religious. God merely executes him. That is the only solution for 

the old man - the old Adam. 

The mercy of God is that the execution took place in the person 

of Jesus on the cross. When Jesus died, our old man died in Him. 

If you know that, and place reliance on it, it works. But if you do 

not know it, you cannot place reliance on it, and it will not work. 

If you know it, but do not place reliance on it, it still will not 

work. It is the knowing and relying that makes it work. 

The fourth side, which is the place where we offer ourselves to 

God, is the burnt offering. This was a gift that was offered to 

God, to be totally consumed in the flames of the altar. If you 

study the order of the offerings in Leviticus, all of which are 

symbolic of Jesus, you will find that the first offering spoken of is 

the burnt offering because the initiative is not with man or the 

sinner, but with God. (See Leviticus 1:3.) Only because Jesus was 

made a burnt offering on the altar of God's will on the cross could 

any of the rest take place at all. If Jesus had not been willing to 

say, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 

26:39), then all the rest would never have taken place. 

When Jesus died, our old man died in Him. 

You will find, in the unfolding of the tabernacle, that we progress 

in the reverse order from that of Scripture. The Bible begins with 

the ark and moves outward. That is because the initiative in 

salvation and redemption is from God, not from man. If God had 

not been willing, nothing would have ever happened. If Jesus had 

not been the initial burnt offering on the cross, there would have 

been no salvation for you or me. But for us, the order is reversed. 

We must have our sins forgiven; sin has to be done away with, 

the old nature must die or be crucified, and then we will be able 

to offer ourselves as an acceptable burnt offering to God. This is 

brought out in Romans 12:1 which begins, "I beseech you 

therefore, brethren...." The word "therefore" refers to the entire 

unfolding of gospel truth that preceded in the previous eleven 

chapters. 

What does God require of us after all of that has been dealt with? 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 

God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, 

holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable 

service. (Romans 12:1) 

Until you have been on these three sides of the altar, you cannot 

present yourself as acceptable unto God. Then God says, "I want 

your body." Few Christians realize this. God wants our entire 

bodies. In the old covenant, the bodies of the animals that were 

slain were placed entirely upon the altar. God says, "I want your 

body on the altar in exactly the same way - with one exception. 

Not dead, but alive." 

The next verse continues, 

And do not be conformed to this world, but be 

transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you 

may prove what is that good and acceptable and 

perfect will of God. (Romans 12:2) 

Until you place your body upon the altar, you cannot discover 

God's will. When you do, your mind is renewed and the will of 

God begins to open up for you. But you cannot make further 

progress until you have been to the four sides of the altar. First, 

past sins are forgiven; then God takes them away. Next the old 

man is executed and the entire body is placed upon the altar in 

total surrender to God. From then on, your body no longer 

belongs to you. You are not your own; you were bought with a 

price. (See 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.) 

The Bronze Laver 

Next we find the bronze laver, as described in Exodus: 

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: "You shall 

also make a laver of bronze, with its base also of 

bronze, for washing. You shall put it between the 

tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put 

water in it, for Aaron and his sons shall wash their 

hands and their feet in water from it. When they go 

into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come 

near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by 

fire to the LORD, they shall wash with water, lest they 

die. So they shall wash their hands and their feet, lest 

they die. And it shall be a statute forever to them; to 

him and his descendants throughout their 

generations." (Exodus 30:17-21) 

So there was the tabernacle and the altar, and the laver was 

between them. Attendance at the laver was not optional; it was 

absolutely required of every person who passed to and from the 

tabernacle. No one could pass the laver without washing in it. If 

they did, the penalty was death. Tremendous importance was 

placed upon the laver. 

The laver represents God's Word. Later in Exodus, we read, 

He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, 

from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who 

assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. 

(Exodus 38:8) 

Brass was taken from the brazen mirrors of the Israelite women 

who attended and worshiped at the tabernacle. Remember, they 

had no glass at that time. The best mirror you could have was 

highly polished, smooth brass. Therefore, we have three aspects 

of the laver: it came from mirrors, it was made of brass, and it 

was filled with water. Each one of these qualities speaks to the 

Word of God. 

First, the Word of God is a mirror: 

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, 

he is like a man observing his natural face in a 

mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and 

immediately forgets what kind of man he was. (James 

1:23) 

God's Word shows the inward spiritual condition. 

God's Word does not reflect the external physical appearance. It 

shows the inward spiritual condition. If you want to know what 

you are really like in the sight of God, look in the mirror. The 

longer I read the Bible, the more I begin to see my imperfection, 

my flaws, and my inadequacies. When you look into a mirror, 

you can do two things. You can say that you do not look that bad 

and simply walk away, doing nothing about it. Or, you can act on 

what you see, making the necessary changes and adjustments; in 

which case, James said you will be blessed as a result of what 

you do. Remember, it is not just the hearers of the Word who are 

blessed; it is the doers, the people who act upon it. 

Second, God's Word is our judge. Brass always typifies divine 

examination and judgment. God sees you, there is no thing 

hidden, all things are naked and open unto the eyes of the Lord. 

In John 12, Jesus said, 

And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I 

do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the 

world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and 

does not receive My words, has that which judges 

him; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the 

last day. (John 12:47-48) 

First Peter tells us that God the Father is the judge. (See 1 Peter 

1:17.) John tells us that the Father has committed all judgment to 

the Son. (See John 5:22.) But in John 12, Jesus said, "I am not 

going to judge you. I have committed all judgment to the Word." 

And judgment will be executed by the standard of the Word. It is 

the absolute standard of divine judgment, which gives us the 

blessed opportunity to judge ourselves. "For if we would judge 

ourselves, we would not be judged" (1 Corinthians 11:31). We 

would not be judged by whom? By God. God says, "If you will 

judge yourself by looking in the mirror, I will not have to judge 

you."

The third aspect of the laver is water, which is the Word of God 

as a cleansing agent. 

Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 

that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the 

washing of water by the word, that He might present 

her to Himself a glorious church. (Ephesians 5:25-27) 

The passage speaks of the cross where Christ sacrificed Himself. 

Here is the washing of water by the Word whereby He cleanses 

and sanctifies that which He has first redeemed by His blood. 

Bear this in mind: Christ redeemed the church by His blood so 

that He might thereafter cleanse and sanctify it with the washing 

of the water of the Word of God. Sanctification, holiness, and the 

fulfillment of God's will depend upon the blood of the cross and 

the water of the Word. Those who came to the brazen altar but did 

not wash in the laver were subject to death. You may be 

redeemed through your faith in Christ's death on the cross, but if 

you do not wash in the water of the Word, you cannot be 

sanctified. Jesus is coming for a church that has been made holy 

and glorious by the washing of water by the Word. That much is 

very clear. Any believer who does not study the Word and submit 

to the Word and obey the Word and live by the Word cannot 

expect to be ready for the coming of Christ. 

To be sanctified, you must wash in the water of the Word. 

This is He who came by water and blood; Jesus 

Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. 

And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the 

Spirit is truth. (1 John 5:6) 

Jesus came by water as the Great Teacher. But He is also the 

Redeemer who had to shed His blood. Without the shedding of 

blood, there is no remission of sins and no redemption. (See 

Hebrews 9:22.) He shed His blood so that He might thereafter 

cleanse and sanctify with the washing of water by the Word. He 

came by the water and by the blood.

Chapter Five 

Your Soul: An Emotional 

Approach To Worship 

We continue on our way into the holiest. Under the old covenant, 

God gave Moses an earthly pattern of heavenly realities and truth. 

But it is only through the new covenant in Jesus Christ that we 

can enter into the actual heavenly realities of what was disclosed 

only in shadow under the old covenant. 

Now we are going to go from the outer court of the temple into 

the Holy Place. Related to the areas of man's personality, we are 

moving out of the realm of the body, or the physical, and into the 

realm of the soul, or the emotional. Or, related to the life of 

Christ, we are moving out of the area of Jesus in the days when 

He walked the earth to that revelation of Jesus after death, 

through resurrection, which is only given by the inspired 

Scriptures. 

And He died for all, that those who live should live no 

longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them 

and rose again. Therefore, from now on, we regard no 

one according to the flesh. Even though we have 

known Christ according to the flesh... 

(2 Corinthians 5:15-16) 

We are speaking now about the fact that Jesus not merely died, 

but He also rose. We move out of the outer area of physical 

knowledge and into the area where revelation is imparted by the 

Holy Spirit.

The First veil 

Jesus not only died, but He also rose. 

Leaving the outer court, we must first pass through the first veil 

or curtain. I believe this represents Christ's resurrection. When we 

pass through that veil, we pass into an area that has been opened 

to us by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It typifies, in a 

sense, our identification with Christ in resurrection. 

If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things 

which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right 

hand of God. (Colossians 3:1) 

We died with Christ, but Scripture says we have also been raised 

with Him. 

The Holy Place 

Within this first Holy Place there were three main objects: the 

table of bread, the lampstand, and the golden altar of incense. I 

believe that these typify the corresponding functions of our soul. 

The Showbread 

The table of bread, or showbread, corresponds to the human will. 

In Scripture, bread is symbolic of strength, and the strength of the 

soul is not in its intellect nor in its emotions, but in its will. You 

can have a brilliant intellect or be highly emotional, yet remain 

very weak. When I preach, I am not seeking to reach people's 

emotions. I am seeking to reach and change their wills. It is 

comparatively easy to get people emotionally stirred up, but it is 

totally ineffective if we don't change their wills. That has to be 

our aim. So the showbread on the table is symbolic of the human 

will. 

Referring to the Psalms, there is a key verse in the very area we 

are dealing with: 

He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and 

vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring 

forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad 

the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread 

which strengthens man's heart. (Psalm 104:14-15) 

Here we have God's provision for the three areas of man's soul. 

The wine is the emotions. The oil is intellect notice the word 

shine, which speaks of light. And the bread speaks of the will. 

God's provision is summed up in these three things: the grain, the 

wine, and the oil. In Joel 1, God's people, who have abandoned 

Him, are destitute of all three items and without his presence. In 

Joel 2, where God said He would pour out His spirit, He also 

said, "Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and 

you will be satisfied by them" (Joel 2:19). Grain is the strength of 

the will and the Word of God. Oil is the illumination of the Holy 

Spirit. And wine is the joy of the Lord. You are living an 

impoverished life if you don't have all three. But God will be sure 

to provide them if we will turn to Him. 

It is Christ Himself who sets the pattern for the will. 

Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: 

"Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body 

You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and 

sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, 

`Behold, I have come; in the volume of the book it is 

written of Me; to do Your will, O God."' (Hebrews 

10:5-7) 

Christ's body was prepared for one purpose: to do God's will. 

Likewise, there is only one reason we have bodies: to do God's 

will. Everything else is secondary. Jesus Himself said, 

I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My 

judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own 

will but the will of the Father who sent Me. (John 

5:30) 

There is only one reason we have bodies: to do God's will. 

That is a very important principle. You can judge justly - your 

discernment will be correct - when you are not seeking your own 

will. When you are seeking the Father's will, you will not be 

deceived. You will have perception, you will have discernment, 

and you will have judgment. But when you begin to want your 

own will, then you will go astray. 

There is a passage in Matthew where we see the final 

confirmation of this point: "Let this cup pass from Me; 

nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). 

Here is the picture of Jesus surrendering His will at every point to 

the Father. Likewise, it is through the surrendering of your will 

that you will discover the perfect will of God. 

When you are seeking the Father's will, you will not be deceived. 

What gave Jesus strength was doing the will of God. This can be 

seen in His conversation with His disciples after meeting the 

Samaritan woman at the well:

In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, 

"Rabbi, eat." But He said to them, "I have food to eat 

of which you do not know." Therefore the disciples 

said to one another, "Has anyone brought Him 

anything to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to 

do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His 

work." (John 4:31-34) 

Jesus was physically weak when He sat at the well, but when He 

witnessed to the woman and fulfilled God's will, it gave Him 

actual physical strength. He no longer felt an immediate need to 

eat. The same is true for us. It is doing the will of God that gives 

us strength. It is setting our will to do God's will that gives our 

souls strength and purpose. 

The word showbread is not a literal translation. It is actually "the 

bread of the face." Whose face? This was the bread that was 

always before the face of God. In Numbers, it is called 

"continual" bread. (See Numbers 4:7 NASB.) This was the bread 

that was continually before God's face day and night, seven days 

a week. I cannot think of anything that has more deeply affected 

me than the understanding that my will is like loaves of bread on 

a table displayed before God day and night, twenty-four hours a 

day. God demands to inspect my will. There were precisely 

twelve loaves on the table - if there is one loaf missing or out of 

place, He wants to know why. 

I promise you that if you can understand this point, you will be 

spared many disasters and heartaches. It is your will that you 

have to guard. It is your will where everything really begins in 

your dealings with God. 

The provision for the showbread, is found in Leviticus:

And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes 

with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. 

You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the 

pure gold table before the LORD. And you shall put 

pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the 

bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the 

LORD. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before 

the LORD continually, being taken from the children 

of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be 

for Aaron and his sons. (Leviticus 24:5-9) 

Here I see eight successive features in which the showbread 

typifies the kind of will God is looking for. First, to make the 

showbread, the grain has to be ground very fine. "Bread corn is 

bruised" (Isaiah 28:28 KJV). This is God, dealing with man's will 

in which a continual bruising of the will occurs. Your will is 

acceptable when it is as smooth and as fine as that flour. Until it 

is, God will go on bruising, bruising, bruising. 

Second, to make the loaf, it must be molded. Your will must be 

conformed to the revealed will of God in the Scriptures. And the 

pattern used for the molding is Jesus. 

Third, after it has been molded, it has to be baked in the heat of 

the fire. The heat represents testing. You say, "All right God, I 

want to do Your will." Then everything goes against you. Five 

hardships hit you in one day. Do you change your mind because 

you cannot stand the fire? Do not think it strange that the fire is 

all around you. That is the baking of the bread. 

Fourth, the bread has to be ordered. There have to be twelve 

loaves, in two rows of six. You don't have seven in one row and 

five in another. This is where many Christians, charismatics in 

particular, can get sloppy. Without discipline, you cannot be a 

disciple. If you don't think it matters that you have five loaves in 

one row and seven in another, you do not think like God. God 

says six loaves in each row, opposite of one another. Not 

haphazard; not askew. If your will is like that, your desk, your 

office, and your kitchen will be like that. If you have trouble 

keeping order in your life, check the showbread. 

Fifth, the bread must be covered by frankincense, which always 

signifies a type of worship in Scripture. Our response cannot be, 

"Well, God, if You insist, I will do it." It must be, "Thank You, 

Lord. I am glad to do Your will. I bow my head in submission and 

worship. Your will be done, Lord." On earth, as it is in heaven; 

that is the standard. 

Sixth, as already mentioned, the bread has to be continually 

displayed before the face of God day and night. God says, "I want 

to see where the bread is." 

Seventh, a double protective crown surrounds it. (See Exodus 

37:10-12.) So precious was the bread that one protective crown 

around the top of the table was not enough. They put a border 

with another crown so that if any little crumbs got outside the 

first crown, they were still protected from falling to the earth by 

the second crown. Similarly, there is a double crown around your 

will. What is the double crown? It is to watch and pray. 

Watch therefore, and pray always [twenty-four hours 

a day] that you may be counted worthy to escape all 

these things. (Luke 21:36) 

You must live in such a way that it would be unrighteous of God 

to bring the judgment that is coming upon the ungodly upon you. 

Watch and pray so that you may be counted worthy to escape. 

"Watch and pray....The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is 

weak" (Matthew 26:41). Jesus said, "You said you'd follow Me 

all the way, but if you do not watch and pray you will be caught 

off guard." Sure enough, that is what happened to the disciples. 

That is our double protective guard to keep the showbread in 

place - watch and pray. 

The eighth and final feature of the bread is that it has to be put 

there fresh. You must regularly rededicate your will to God. 

Smith Wigglesworth said, "Every new revelation demands a new 

dedication." I agree with that. Every time God shows you a new 

truth, a new assignment, it demands that the showbread be put on 

the table afresh. 

In the outer court, it was what God has done for us. But when we 

enter the Holy Place, it is about our response to God. It begins 

with the will. To me, it is very clear. As I walk along the street or 

participate in some daily activity, I think to myself, Is the 

showbread there? Is every loaf in place? Is there anything in me 

that's not submitted to the will of God? I do not mean resigned to 

God's will; I mean positively delighting to do His will. 

You must regularly rededicate your will to God. 

The Lampstand 

The next item of furniture within the Holy Place is the seven- 

branched candlestick, which I liken to the intellect the source of 

light. The lampstand was illuminated by olive oil. This represents 

the human intellect as illuminated by the Holy Spirit. 

The lampstand and the cherubim on the ark of the covenant 

within the Holy of Holies were both made of beaten gold. 

Everything else in the tabernacle was made of pure gold. Pure 

gold is divine in nature; beaten gold is of divine workmanship. 

Similarly, just as the cherubim were created beings, the mind is 

also a creation of God. Furthermore, beaten gold suggests a 

process of shaping, hammering, and forming something into a 

certain pattern. I believe it represents two facets of our intellect: 

study and discipline. For the lampstand of your intellect to be 

what God intends, it has to be beaten or shaped. 

Casting down arguments and every high thing that 

exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing 

every thought into captivity to the obedience of 

Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) 

Here is a verse that obviously applies to the area of the mind. The 

suggestion is that, when left to our own nature, our thoughts are 

in opposition to God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God" 

(Romans 8:7). Every thought of that enemy (the carnal mind) has 

to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That 

process is the hammering out of the golden lampstand. 

Do you know how to tell when your mind is in the captivity of 

Christ? When everything you think is in line with Scripture. 

Every thought has to be brought into captivity to the obedience of 

Christ. 

As someone trained in philosophy before I came to Christ, I have 

probably had more problems with my mind than the average 

Christian. God has shown me that this was the weak area of my 

life. He showed me that I needed protection for my mind and 

gave me a helmet of hope. (See 1 Thessalonians 5:8.) He showed 

me that the world is alienated from God in the attitude of its 

mind. One of the great ministries of the gospel is bringing 

people's minds into captivity to the obedience of Christ. But God 

revealed to me that I had to start with my own mind. I have 

certainly not arrived, but I have a very different mind from the 

one I had when I was a young man. I have deliberately hammered 

away at the lampstand to bring every thought into captivity. This 

is the process every believer is to go through. 

In Psalms, we see that light is related to understanding: 

The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives 

understanding to the simple. (Psalm 119:130) 

And then, in Ephesians, we see that this understanding is a 

spiritual process. "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind" 

(Ephesians 4:23). The word "renewed" is in the continuing 

present tense, suggesting that the mind is continually and 

progressively renewed. It is not a one-time event. 

Understanding comes from yielding up your mind to the Holy 

Spirit. As the Holy Spirit takes over your mind, He will bring it 

into line with the Book He wrote - the Bible. When the Holy 

Spirit captivates your mind, your mind agrees with Scripture in 

every point. But it is a process. 

Just as Jesus sets the pattern for the will, we see that He does the 

same for the mind: 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ 

Jesus. (Philippians 2:5) 

Learn to think the way Jesus thought. As the passage continues, 

you will see that the key word is humility: 

Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it 

robbery to be equal with God. (Philippians 2:6) 

Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death on the cross. That is 

the mind that was in Jesus. The mind must undergo its 

crucifixion. That is the process of bringing your proud, stubborn 

mind into captivity, to obedience, to humility, and to death on the 

cross. The crucified mind doesn't argue with God. It does not say, 

"But...." It says, "Amen." 

The illumination of the intellect depends upon the yielding of the 

will. You cannot have your intellect illuminated until you yield 

your will. The illuminated intellect always reveals the condition 

of the will. After all, in the temple, the candlestick was over the 

table of showbread. 

If your will gets out of order, your illuminated intellect will 

reveal it, but will also resent it. Then, you will go into darkness. 

Instead of getting true revelation, you will get false revelation. 

Jesus said, "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how 

great is that darkness!" (Matthew 6:23). 

The place of revelation, the Holy of Holies where we are headed, 

is the holiest of all. To receive true revelation, you must be rightly 

related to the holiest of all. If you are not in right relationship to 

the source of revelation, you will only receive false revelation. 

This is the order of divine revelation and direction from God for 

the believer. It is God's Spirit that controls and operates in the 

believer's spirit, which controls the believer's soul, and which 

controls the believer's body. So, as with everything, the initiative, 

the source of origin, is with God, and it all depends on the will 

being fully yielded to God. 

The Golden Altar Of Incense

The final item within the Holy Place, the golden altar of incense, 

was the tallest item in the room. It was two cubits high, while 

everything else was one and a half cubits high. It had horns on 

top at each corner of the altar. Between the horns, a fire burned, 

but no sacrificial animal was burned in this flame. The only item 

placed in this fire was the special incense, created from a certain 

formula that was unlawful to ever be copied or used in any other 

situation but on that one golden altar. In other words, the altar of 

incense represents the place of worship in the life of the believer. 

There is a worship we give to God that we must never offer to 

any other. Don't become a worshiper of preachers, because that is 

misusing the incense that only belongs on the altar that leads to 

the presence of God. 

We can identify eight features of the golden altar of incense. 

Remember, we are still in the area that relates to the soul of man. 

God first deals with the will (the showbread), then with the 

intellect (the lampstand), and then He is prepared to turn your 

emotions loose. Some people are afraid of emotions in religion. 

But that isn't really logical since emotions are such an essential 

part of man. Certainly it is possible for the emotions to become 

out of control and disorderly, but this particular pattern that we 

are following shows us how we might bring our emotions back 

under control. 

There is a worship we give to God that we must never offer to 

any other. 

God desires that we be in control of our emotions, and not let our 

emotions control us. It is the will that determines control. I can 

dance and celebrate and turn loose like most people. But it isn't 

my emotions that make me do it; it is my will. I cannot allow my 

emotions to dictate to me. That is not to say that I appear 

unemotional. I have emotions, but they must come in their right 

place. 

I believe you can have full reign of your emotions when your will 

and your intellect have been dealt with. But if you do it the other 

way around, then you are the slave of your emotions. 

Thus, the first feature of the altar is that it was four sided and 

square; it was equal in every dimension. This signifies that your 

emotions must be balanced, not given to one type of emotion or 

another. 

Second, as the table of showbread was protected with two 

crowns, the golden altar of incense was protected by one. What is 

the crown that protects the emotions? It is nothing else but self- 

control. Remember, you are in charge of your emotions. Never let 

them take charge of you. 

Third, the fire symbolizes intensity, purity, and the passion of the 

soul. Far from wanting us to be unemotional, God wants us to be 

passionate people. But it is a controlled, purified, and directed 

passion. 

Kate Booth Clibborn, the daughter of William Booth, once said, 

"Jesus loves us passionately, and He wants to be loved 

passionately." He certainly does. Passion is part of holiness, but it 

has to be in the right relationship and under the right control. 

The fourth aspect of the golden altar was the incense, which 

spoke of devotion made fragrant by the test of fire. Frankincense 

is a black, unattractive lump until you put it on the fire. Then it 

becomes wonderfully fragrant. Honey, on the other hand, is sweet 

and pleasant until you put it on the fire. Then it becomes a sticky, 

black mess. And God said that He didn't want any honey on the 

offerings of the Lord made by fire. (See Leviticus 2:11.) No 

sweet talk or nice phrases if it won't stand the test of fire.

Fifth was the smoke rising up. Beautiful and fragrant, the white 

smoke is adoration expressed in praise and worship. 

Sixth, the horns of the altar had to be purified with the blood of 

the propitiatory sacrifice every year on the Day of Atonement. In 

other words, our worship must always acknowledge that we only 

have access by the blood of Jesus. If we ever offer worship that 

isn't through the blood of Jesus, it is totally unacceptable to God. 

The altar had to be sanctified by the blood. It was the tallest piece 

of furniture. The horns brought it up to the approximate height of 

the cherubim on the mercy seat. Thus, when we launch out in 

praise and adoration and worship, we are rising up like the smoke 

of the incense to the highest spiritual levels. 

And finally, the altar is the transition from the soul to the spirit, 

from the holy to the most holy. There is no other appointed way 

but the way of praise, adoration, and worship. 

Thus, we approach that inner place of holiness with our attitude 

in line - our will, intellect, and emotion in accordance with God's 

requirements. Now, we are ready to enter into the very presence 

of God and discover true worship.

Chapter Six 

Your Spirit: The Way 

Into The Holiest 

We have traveled through the tabernacle, this triune building 

representing the triune nature of man. We have likened the three 

areas of the tabernacle to the three areas of human personality: 

the outer court, the body; the Holy Place, the soul; and now the 

Holy of Holies, representing man's spirit. 

The Second Heir 

As we leave the Holy Place, we pass through a second veil. Only 

on the Day of Atonement, on this one day a year, was a priest 

allowed to go beyond the second veil. He went with the blood 

from the brazen altar and with a censer filled with burning coals 

of fire and incense from the golden altar of incense. This is 

because the way to the holiest is with the blood of the everlasting 

sacrifice, and with the incense of worship and adoration. Without 

worship, we have no access beyond the Holy Place. Until we 

learn true worship, we are confined in the realm of the soul. The 

only way out is through worship sanctified by the blood. I see this 

veil as representing Christ's ascension. 

But God... made us alive together with Christ (by 

grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, 

and made us sit together in the heavenly places in 

Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-6) 

Not merely are we raised from the dead with Him, but Scripture 

says we have also been raised up to sit with Him in the heavenly 

places. The first veil typifies resurrection from the dead. This 

second veil typifies the ascension that takes us up into the 

heavenlies and seats us positionally on the throne with Christ. 

The Holy Of Holies 

You will remember that within the Holy of Holies there was no 

light except for the manifest, visible, personal presence of God - 

the shekinah glory. That is where worship takes place. We don't 

need any other source of illumination when we are in the 

presence of God. Here we experience the privilege of direct 

person-to-Person, spirit-to-Spirit relationship with God. 

Three activities of the spirit are worship, fellowship, and 

revelation. 

Within the Holy of Holies were two items of furniture that 

occupied the same space. First, there was the ark of the covenant. 

And above the ark was the mercy seat with cherubim, one on 

each end. 

The three activities of the spirit - worship, fellowship, and 

revelation - have meaning only in relation to God Himself. Man's 

spirit is dead unless it is united with God. Your body and soul can 

operate without direct relationship with God, but the spirit only 

comes alive in contact with the Creator. When your spirit is 

separated from God, it is dead, darkened, and blind. So, all 

activities of the spirit have meaning only in relation to God 

Himself. 

The Ark Of The Covenant 

The ark is Christ, revealed to the spirit. Or, Christ revealed within 

your spirit, since, in our way of interpreting the temple, the Holy 

of Holies represents man's spirit. An ark in the Bible is always a 

type of Christ. For instance, the ark of Noah typifies you in 

Christ. The ark of Moses typifies Christ in you. But both 

symbolize New Testament relationships. 

The Ark of the Covenant was of acacia wood, as was all the wood 

in the tabernacle, and was lined both inside and out with gold. 

The wood typified the humanity of Jesus; gold typified His 

divinity. Within the ark were three items: the tablets of stone 

containing the Ten Commandments, the golden pot of manna, and 

the budded rod of Aaron - which we will examine in greater 

detail. Later, the tabernacle was replaced by another building, 

which became God's dwelling place in Israel: the temple, built by 

Solomon. When the ark was brought into Solomon's temple, the 

contents had changed: 

Then the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of 

the LORD to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the 

temple, to the Most Holy Place, under the wings of the 

cherubim. For the cherubim spread their wings over 

the place of the ark, and the cherubim overshadowed 

the ark and its poles. And the poles extended so that 

the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen from the 

holy place, in front of the inner sanctuary; but they 

could not be seen from outside. And they are there to 

this day. Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets 

which Moses put there at Horeb. (2 Chronicles 5:7-10) 

The golden pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded were taken 

out when the tabernacle ceased and the temple was built. I believe 

the tabernacle was a picture of the church in this present age: 

light, mobile, and impermanent. Everything had poles so that it 

could be carried. It could all be taken down, moved, and 

reassembled again. That is the church in this dispensation.

I believe the temple of Solomon is the church in the next age: 

established, permanent, glorified, and reigning in visible power. 

Now it reigns invisibly - spiritually. 

Two items were taken out of the ark. First, the golden pot of 

manna, which was the hidden manna - in the next age it will no 

longer be hidden. And Aaron's rod that budded, symbolizing 

God's power and authority - in the next age it will be openly 

displayed. But the tablets of stone always remain in the ark. 

The Tablets Of Stone 

The two tablets of stone represent God's eternal, righteous law. 

There is a law in the universe that is the expression of God's own 

righteousness. It is as unchanging and eternal as God Himself. 

Psalm 40 tells us about this law in relation to Christ: 

Then I said, "Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book 

it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my 

God, and Your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:7- 

8) 

The tablets of stone in the ark signified Christ, with God's law 

within His heart, never deviating by a hair's breadth from the 

eternal law of God's righteousness. 

God offered those tablets of stone to Israel the first time, but by 

the time Moses came down from the mountain after receiving 

them, Israel was already breaking the first commandment by 

idolatry. In anger, Moses cast down the tablets and they were 

broken. The next time Moses went up the mountain, God said, 

"Carve out some new tablets, and I'll write on them with My 

finger." But the second time, Moses was not authorized to display

the tablets of stone to Israel. He was commanded to place them 

inside the ark. Then they were covered with the mercy seat. From 

then on, it was a sin punishable by death to ever lift the lid from 

the ark. 

The condition of being God's people is having the law written in 

your hearts. 

That was the end of man trying to keep the law by his own 

efforts. He tried once but failed before the law ever got down 

from the mountain. God decided that was the end of that, and 

created another way. Now it was not man keeping the law, but it 

was Christ in man, with the law in His heart - the only way of 

righteousness. 

The ark in you, and the law in the ark - Christ being the ark. 

Hebrews unfolds this truth of Christ within us having the law in 

His heart: 

Because finding fault with them, He says: "Behold, 

the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will 

make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 

with the house of Judah; not according to the 

covenant that I made with their fathers in the day 

when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the 

land of Egypt." (Hebrews 8:8-9) 

That covenant was set aside because Israel broke it before it was 

ever finalized. 

For this is the covenant that I will make with the 

house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will 

put My laws in their mind and write them on their 

hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My 

people. (Hebrews 8:10) 

That is the condition of being God's people: that you have God's 

law, not on two tablets of stone hanging on the wall, but written 

in your hearts. That is what makes you God's people. Paul wrote, 

And to the Jews I became as a Jew,... to those who are 

under the law, as under the law,... to those who are 

without law, as without law (not being without law 

toward God, but under law toward Christ). (1 

Corinthians 9:20-21) 

Actually, that is not quite the right translation. What Paul meant 

was, "I am in the law in Christ because Christ is the keeper of the 

law for me. When Christ rules my heart, then God's law rules in 

my heart, through Christ in my heart. But it is not me keeping the 

law; it is Christ living out His lawfulness in my heart. I am totally 

dependent on Christ. Christ in me, the hope of glory." (See 

Colossians 1:27.) 

The Golden Pot Of Manna 

Next, we come to the golden pot of manna, collected from the 

time when God provided sustenance for His people while they 

were wandering in the desert. John tells us about the manna as he 

quotes Jesus: 

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in 

the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which 

comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and 

not die. (John 6:48-50)

Very clearly, Christ was saying, "I am the true manna, the true 

bread that came down from heaven." Later, He said something 

tremendous: 

As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the 

Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 

(John 6:57) 

In effect, Jesus was saying, "I have life by My union with the 

Father. And the one who believes in Me will have life by union 

with Me as I have union with the Father. And in that union with 

Me, he will feed upon Me. I will be the hidden manna in his 

heart. And on that manna he will feed, day by day." 

In Revelation, Jesus speaks to all believers in the church, and He 

gives us this promise of the hidden manna: 

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to 

the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some 

of the hidden manna to eat.  (Revelation 2:17) 

That is the manna in the golden pot. We feed on Christ, the 

manna, by our inner spiritual communion with Him. Feeding on 

Him, we live by Him as He lives by His union with the Father. 

This is the inward spiritual union with Christ within, whereby He 

becomes the hidden manna in our hearts. 

Aaron's Rod - That Budded 

The third item was the budded rod of Aaron that Moses used to 

perform God's miracles before Pharaoh and his sorcerers. 

Eventually, the leaders of the other tribes of Israel challenged 

Aaron's authority as high priest, and as the only one with the right 

to enter the Holy of Holies. God said, "We will settle this once 

and for all. Let the head of every tribe of Israel bring Me his rod." 

The rod was the symbol of authority for each tribe. Each man 

wrote his name on his rod. As God instructed, they put all of the 

rods before God and came back twenty-four hours later. When 

they returned, eleven of the rods were just as they had left them. 

But the twelfth rod had budded, bringing forth blossoms and 

complete almonds in just twenty-four hours. On the rod that 

budded was written the name Aaron. God had vindicated Aaron's 

authority. (See Numbers 17:1-10.) 

Today, the name on that rod is not Aaron, but Jesus. By the 

resurrection from the dead, God vindicated the divine claim of 

Jesus. So the rod is divine attestation and it comes by divine 

revelation. When you have revelation and attestation, you have 

authority. 

Now we have a picture of what was inside the Holy of Holies. 

The three items within the ark signify the following, and I believe 

they must be in this order: worship, fellowship, and revelation. 

Out of our approach in worship comes fellowship. Without 

worship you do not have fellowship. God will not fellowship with 

somebody who approaches irreverently or hastily. But when you 

approach with worship, you enter into fellowship. You begin to 

feed upon the hidden manna in the golden pot. And then out of 

worship and fellowship comes revelation of the mind and the will 

and the purpose of God. The shekinah glory illuminates this 

place. 

The Mercy Seat 

Now that we have dealt with the ark, we look at the mercy seat, 

which covered the ark. As I said before, the ark is Christ. Outside 

of Christ, there is no mercy, no acceptance, and no life. If you are 

in the ark, you are under the mercy. 

Romans uses the Greek word for mercy seat, though it isn't 

translated that way in the English Scripture: 

Being justified freely by His grace through the 

redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set 

forth as a propitiation [here is the Greek word for 

mercy seat] by His blood. (Romans 3:24-25) 

Christ's atonement, His sacrifice, is the mercy seat. It is the place 

that covers the broken law, the tablets of stone that all of us have 

been unable to accept or keep. Now the mercy seat becomes a 

throne: 

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, 

that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in 

time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) 

We can go boldly to the throne of grace because God sits on the 

mercy seat, on Christ's atoning work that covers the broken law. 

We can go boldly to the throne of grace because God sits on the 

mercy seat. 

On the ark were two cherubs, two heavenly creatures, in beaten 

gold, kneeling at each end of the ark, their faces turned inward 

toward one another, their wings stretched out, with the tips 

meeting just over the mercy seat. Here again were represented the 

same three activities: worship, fellowship, and revelation. The 

bowed wings of the cherubim are worship. Their faces, inward 

toward one another, are fellowship. God said that where the 

wings and faces met, He would reveal His glory:

And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, 

covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they 

shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall 

be toward the mercy seat. You shall put the mercy seat 

on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the 

Testimony that I will give you. And there I will meet 

with you, and I will speak with you from above the 

mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are 

on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I 

will give you in commandment to the children of 

Israel. (Exodus 25:20-22) 

Here, Christ sits as a King and a Priest upon His throne. I believe 

the life inside the ark must precede the life upon the throne. It is 

the hidden life in the ark that gives you access to the throne. 

There has to be the inner life of worship, or bowing down, before 

the eternal law. If you don't submit in prostration before the law 

of God, you have no access. You have to learn to feed upon the 

hidden manna. You have to have the rod that buds supernaturally 

with divine revelation. 

When we come into the ark, we can step up on the mercy seat and 

sit on the throne. Jesus wants to share His throne with you, but 

there is an appointed way, step by step by step. I don't believe you 

can bypass any of these stages. There is only one way into the 

holiest. It is like a map; it is sketched out so plainly that an 

intelligent child of ten can easily understand once God reveals it. 

Here we have what I would call the "end product" of entering the 

Holy of Holies. There is worship, an intimate communion, and 

feeding on God. There is revelation, imparting God's authority. 

And there is God's eternal law of righteousness stamped upon our 

consciences. This is the destination of the progression into 

worship. We start in the outer court with the bronze altar 

symbolizing Christ's death. We pass through the first veil of 

Christ's resurrection into the Holy Place where we give God our 

will, intellect, and emotions. And then we are brought through the 

second veil, symbolizing Christ's ascension, and into the 

immediate presence of God. 

Then, we have entered into worship. Worship is not essentially an 

utterance; it is an attitude. It is not primarily praise, although they 

can be blended together. Worship is the attitude with which you 

approach. Worship relates to the tablets of stone within the 

tabernacle. It is total submission to the righteous law of God that 

doesn't change, doesn't bend, and doesn't deviate. It is complete 

reverence in approaching God. 

Worship is total submission to the righteous law of God. 

As you would proceed through the tabernacle, each area would 

get progressively smaller and smaller the closer you came to God. 

Finally, in the Holy of Holies, you would be in a perfect cube - 

ten cubits long, ten cubits wide, and ten cubits high. There was 

really nothing to attract you there but God, and that is the way He 

planned it. There is something within us that grows scared the 

farther we go in this approach. Most of us come to God for 

things. We want blessings, we want power, or we want healing. 

God wants us to come simply for Him. Thus, we don't come into 

this place until we come to God for God's sake. We approach God 

as God. We worship; we bow before Him. We feed upon Him; we 

enjoy Him. Then comes revelation.

Chapter Seven 

Four Blessings Of The New Covenant 

It is my firm opinion that the epistle of Hebrews doesn't make 

any sense if you are not familiar with the tabernacle because the 

entire letter is based on the tabernacle and on the priesthood. I 

have heard it said that Leviticus is the Hebrews of the Old 

Testament or that Hebrews is the Leviticus of the New Testament, 

whichever way you would like to word it. In Hebrews 10 we see 

a clear application of what we have been learning: 

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the 

Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way 

which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, 

His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of 

God, let us draw near with a true heart in full 

assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from 

an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure 

water. (Hebrews 10:19-22) 

These verses name four great blessings of the new covenant and 

the four chief requirements of the true worshiper. In this chapter, I 

will elaborate on the four blessings that are listed. 

The Holy Of Holies Opened Up 

What an incredible privilege! It staggers my powers of expression 

that we have this direct access into the immediate presence of 

almighty God. The barrier to this access is man's sinful, fleshly 

nature. But this was dealt with on the cross, as it states in 

Romans:

For what the law could not do in that it was weak 

through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in 

the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He 

condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3) 

The law could not do it because there was not anything wrong 

with the law. Paul said that the law is holy and just and good. 

(See Romans 7:12.) Every commandment of the law was right. 

Still, I could look at those tablets of stone and all the other 

writings of the law and say, "I'll do it," but there is something in 

me that says, "Oh no, you won't. In fact, the harder you try to do 

it, the worse you will fail." Paul stated it this way: 

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I 

will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that 

I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with 

the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who 

do it, but sin that dwells in me....I find then a law, that 

evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 

(Romans 7:15-17, 21) 

The moment I try to keep the law, my carnal, rebellious nature 

asserts itself, and the harder I try to be good, the worse I am. I 

discovered this at age fifteen when I was confirmed in the 

Anglican Church. I really decided that it was time for me to be a 

lot better than I had been for a long while. I said, "This is it. I'll 

be confirmed, brush my teeth, go to communion, and I'll be 

good." I was never so bad as immediately after that confirmation. 

The problem is self-confidence. "Cursed is the man who trusts in 

man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the 

LORD" (Jeremiah 17:5). When you say, "There is the law; I am 

doing it," you are putting confidence in yourself and you come 

under a curse. "Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the 

words of this law" (Deuteronomy 27:26). If you are going to be 

under the law, you have to do all the law, all the time. If you can't 

do that, it is of no avail. If you break one point of the law once, 

you are a lawbreaker forever. It's either all or nothing. 

If you are under the law, you have to do all the law, all the time. 

I recognize the law is good. There is something in me that says, 

"That's right; that's the way I should be living." "For I delight in 

the law of God according to the inward man" (Romans 7:22). But 

there is something else in me - a rebel. 

But I see another law in my members, warring against 

the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to 

the law of sin which is in my members. (Romans 7:23) 

The word captivity means "prisoner of war." Paul was saying, "I 

set out to fight for God and I end up on the wrong side, fighting 

against Him. I am a prisoner of war. I do not do it deliberately; it 

is something that takes me captive. I cannot help it." 

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from 

this body of death?...So then, with the mind I myself 

serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. 

(Romans 7:24-25) 

That is a poor translation. A better one would be: "Left to myself, 

I can serve the law of God with my mind, but with my fleshly 

nature I am a slave of the law of sin and I cannot change it." So, 

what is the remedy?

For what the law could not do.... (Romans 8:3) 

The law couldn't change my nature. It told me what to do, but it 

couldn't give me the power to do it. 

For what the law could not do in that it was weak 

through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in 

the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He 

condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3) 

He condemned sin in whose flesh? In the flesh of Jesus. God 

dealt with sin in the body of Jesus. His body became the sin 

offering. That is where sin was dealt with, once and forever. 

When we appreciate that, we are free from the bondage and guilt 

of sin. 

So, going back to the passage in Hebrews, we read: By a new and 

living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, 

His flesh. (Hebrews 10:20) 

Our fleshly nature is the veil, crucified in the body of Jesus. We 

cannot pass through that veil to come near to God; the veil has to 

be taken away. The fleshly nature has to be dealt with. It was 

dealt with in the body of Christ. When His flesh was torn on the 

cross for our sins, the veil was torn as well. 

The temple was built in the same pattern, the triune structure, as 

the tabernacle: the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of 

Holies. The temple was simply more substantial and permanent. 

In accordance with divine ordinance, the Holy of Holies was 

separated by this tremendously glorious, thick, impenetrable 

curtain. But when Jesus died on the cross, just outside the city of 

Jerusalem, something happened to the curtain in the Holy of 

Holies at that precise moment:

The way was opened into the Holiest through the death of Jesus. 

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and 

yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the 

temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 

(Matthew 27:50-51) 

Let there be no doubt about where the initiative came from. It 

came from God, and not from man. The curtain was torn from the 

top to the bottom. The way was opened into the Holiest through 

the death of Jesus because in His flesh on the cross, God 

condemned and put away sin. Now, the Holy of Holies was 

opened up for us. 

Boldness In The Blood Of Jesus 

We refer back to Hebrews 10 for the second blessing of the new 

covenant: 

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the 

Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way. 

(Hebrews 10:19-20) 

The word boldness is not primarily subjective, but objective. In 

other words, it is not that I have an emotional boldness; it is that I 

have a legal boldness that comes from having an absolute, 

indisputable right of access. Whether or not I feel bold is 

secondary. This is important to understand. The word boldness 

here is somewhat misleading. It is more of an unquestionable 

right of access through the blood of Jesus. 

In Leviticus, we have the old covenant ceremonies for the 

appointed day on which the high priest was allowed to enter the 

Holy of Holies - once a year, on the Day of Atonement. Today the 

Jews call it Yom Kippur, the day of covering - still a day of 

fasting and mourning for Orthodox Jews. The entire chapter is 

another tremendous presentation of the truth of entry into the 

holiest, but I want to deal specifically with the blood of the sin 

offering. 

And Aaron [the high priest] shall bring the bull of the 

sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement 

for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bull as 

the sin offering which is for himself Then he shall take 

a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar 

before the LORD, with his hands full of sweet incense 

beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil. 

(Leviticus 16:11-12) 

Notice that it is the blood from the altar and the incense from the 

altar that must be united for access through the veil. 

And he shall put the incense on the fire before the 

LORD, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy 

seat that is on the Testimony, lest he die. 

(Leviticus 16:13) 

This was no empty religious ceremony. This was life or death - 

for the priest and for the whole nation. If at any time the priest 

was not accepted, the entire nation lost its standing before God. 

He was their representative. 

He shall take some of the blood of the bull and 

sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the 

east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle 

some of the blood with his finger seven times. 

(Leviticus 16:14) 

The number seven tells us that it is through the Holy Spirit. In the 

same way, Jesus, "through the eternal Spirit offered Himself 

without spot to God" (Hebrews 9:14). The blood was sprinkled 

on and before the mercy seat. Actually, there was a train of blood 

all the way through the tabernacle. Without blood, there is no 

access. 

We see the parallel in the New Testament. The atonement of Jesus 

was not terminated on earth; it was consummated in heaven. This 

is clearly stated in Hebrews: 

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure 

and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind 

the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even 

Jesus. (Hebrews 6:19-20) 

Here, we are not talking about the earthly tabernacle; we are 

talking about the tabernacle in heaven. Jesus has entered within 

the veil. A forerunner is a representative, someone who says, 

"There are others coming after me. From now on, the way is open 

for them to follow me." Jesus is our forerunner. He has entered 

within the veil. 

Then, further on in Hebrews, the Scripture says, But Christ came 

as High Priest of the good things to come.... (Hebrews 9:11) 

A better translation is "good things that have actually been 

accomplished." In other words, in contrast to the law, which had 

only types and shadows and promises and patterns, this is real - it

really happened. 

But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to 

come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle 

not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not 

with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own 

blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, 

having obtained eternal redemption. (Hebrews 9:11- 

12) 

Jesus took His blood with Him into the Holiest. 

Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the 

things in the heavens should be purified with these, 

but the heavenly things themselves with better 

sacrifices than these. (Hebrews 9:23) 

The heavenly things had to be purified, but not with the blood of 

bulls and goats. 

For Christ has not entered the holy places made with 

hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven 

itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.  

(Hebrews 9:24) 

How did Christ enter into the Holiest? With His own blood. And 

this becomes even clearer when we turn to the twelfth chapter of 

Hebrews: 

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of 

the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.... (Hebrews 

12:22)

This is not the earthly Jerusalem. We have come, not physically, 

but by the Spirit. 

...to an innumerable company of angels, to the general 

assembly and church of the firstborn who are 

registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the 

spirits of just men made perfect. (Hebrews 12:22-23) 

That is you and me. Our headquarters is in heaven. Are you 

enrolled in heaven in the Lamb's Book of Life, or are you just on 

the roll of the church? It is all right to be on the roll of the church, 

but it is not sufficient. 

... to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to 

the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than 

that of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24) 

Abel's blood was sprinkled on earth. What did it call out for? 

Vengeance. Jesus' blood is sprinkled in heaven. What does it call 

out for? Mercy. If you can believe that the blood of Jesus is 

always speaking on your behalf in the very presence of God, this 

is a tremendous truth. If it weren't, you would never get to 

heaven. God, as Judge, would never bring you there. Even Jesus 

did not enter heaven without His blood. It is the only access; 

through the blood of Jesus sprinkled in heaven. 

The blood of Jesus is always speaking on your behalf in the 

presence of God. 

The New And Living Way

The third of the great blessings of the new covenant is the new 

and living way - which is Jesus. Jesus becomes the way; He 

becomes the truth; He becomes the life; but He is the way all the 

way through. The way that Jesus went in is the way that we go; 

there is no other way. It is a way of self-denial, obedience, 

sacrifice, and death. That is the new and living way. 

For to this you were called, because Christ also 

suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should 

follow His steps. (1 Peter 2:21) 

The steps of Jesus are the new and living way. What is the first 

step when you want to follow Jesus? 

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to 

come after Me, let him deny himself" (Matthew 16:24) 

Self-denial. That doesn't mean just giving up radishes for Lent! 

That's fine, but it isn't self-denial. Self-denial is saying no to the 

ego. When self says, "I want," self-denial is the ability to say, 

"No." When self says, "I think," self-denial says, "No." What you 

think is not the least bit important. If what you think still matters, 

you have not denied yourself. Denying yourself is saying no to 

that old goat inside you. 

Likewise, self-denial is not giving up the vile sin. That may be 

needed, but self-denial is denying the ego, the "I" that asserts 

itself and makes itself important, demanding that the world center 

around itself: what I want, what I think, and what I feel. It is all 

irrelevant as far as God is concerned. 

The first step in actually following Jesus is saying no to all that. 

If any man will take up his cross, let him deny himself. In 

Matthew 26, we have the climax for self-denial: 

He went a little farther and fell on His face, and 

prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this 

cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as 

You will. "...Again, a second time, He went away and 

prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass 

away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done." 

(Matthew 26:39, 42) 

Every new move in God begins with the repetition of, "Not as I 

will, but as You will." Jesus didn't just renounce His will once. 

Every time He was confronted with the choice between His will 

and the Father's will, He repeated the renunciation, "Not as I will, 

but as You will." That is the new and living way. 

The wonderful thing about this is that when you set your heart on 

following God, you rejoice. Though it sounds hard, it fills you 

with joy. But if your heart isn't set on following God, then all you 

can see is the unpleasantness of it. 

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and 

by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to 

glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect 

through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10) 

Jesus was made perfect through suffering. He is our leader. We 

are made perfect in the same way that He was made perfect - 

through the sufferings that come from obedience. From saying, 

"Not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). Not from the 

suffering that comes from disobedience. That type of suffering 

does not purify you, refine you, or make you perfect.

When you set your heart on following God, it fills you with joy. 

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being 

sanctified are all of one. (Hebrews 2:11) 

"He who sanctifies" is Jesus. "Those who are being sanctified" 

are you and I. And the "one" of whom we all come Jesus and you 

and I - is the Father. So we are sanctified by the Father in the way 

that Jesus was made perfect. It is the Jesus way that leads to 

sanctification, holiness, and perfection. That is the way. 

[Jesus], in the days of His flesh, when He had offered 

up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries 

and tears to Him who was able to save Him from 

death, and was heard because of His godly fear....  

(Hebrews 5:7) 

The New English Bible says, "Because of His humble submission 

He was heard." His prayer was heard. That is the spirit of access 

to God. Jesus is the perfect pattern. He was heard because He 

feared. This is the root answer as to why prayers are not 

answered. I can give you half a dozen other reasons, but God has 

showed me that this is the root. You can teach people all the 

principles of getting their prayers answered, but if their attitude is 

wrong, the principles don't work. The attitude comes first. He was 

heard because of His humble submission. 

...though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by 

the things which He suffered. (Hebrews 5:8) 

He found out what it was to obey by suffering as a consequence 

of obeying. 

And having been perfected, He became the author of 

eternal salvation to all who obey Him. (Hebrews 5:9) 

The same way He went is the way - the new and living way. 

Jesus was God, is God, and always will be God. And He became 

man, finally and forever. Do not forget, He is still a man. "For 

there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the 

Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). 

When He emptied Himself, He didn't do it conditionally; He just 

emptied Himself. He was obedient unto death and, as it says in 

Philippians 2:9, "Therefore God also has highly exalted Him." 

Having emptied Himself, He had to earn His way back to that 

place of exaltation. "Therefore" indicates that His exaltation was 

the result of His obedience. If He had disobeyed, He would never 

have gotten back. So He is the perfect pattern of development, 

maturity, and perfection. He had to be made perfect as a man 

through obedience. How then will we be made perfect? Through 

obedience - so leave the theology to one side and just obey. 

How will we be made perfect? Through obedience. 

We Have a Great High Priest 

What do we have so far? We have the Holiest opened to us. We 

have an objective right of access through the blood. And we have 

a new and living way to avail ourselves of this access. Now we 

have a Great High Priest waiting there for us. Who is He? Jesus. 

He is the High Priest in two respects.

We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right 

hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a 

Minister of the sanctuary. (Hebrews 8:1-2) 

First of all, He is a minister of the sanctuary. Has it ever occurred 

to you that the high priest in Israel had to know quite a bit? He 

had a lot of rules to observe. He had to know how to kill the 

animal, what to do with the liver, the legs, the heart, the head, and 

the skin. He had to know on which side of the altar to sprinkle the 

blood. All the way through, there were a great many precise 

requirements that had to be complied with. Jesus is the minister 

of the true sanctuary. When He went in, He did everything right. 

He met all of God's requirements as a priest all the way through. 

Because He did everything right, our access is guaranteed. 

Second, He is the mediator of the new covenant: 

And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new 

covenant. (Hebrews 9:15) 

He ministers the benefits of His sacrifice to you and me by the 

Holy Spirit. He imparts to us - He works out in us as we follow in 

this way - what is required in each phase of access. He is the one 

who makes the covenant work in you and me. Having done all 

the groundwork, having gone in to God, He turns around and 

does everything that is needed in everyone who obeys Him to 

make our access perfect. He mediates the covenant. 

Thus, we have the four blessings of the new covenant. First, the 

veil is torn and the way is open. Second, we have an objective, 

legal, unquestionable right of access through the blood. Third, we 

have a living way to go in, the way that Jesus went: obedience, 

self-denial, sacrifice, and the death of the old man. Jesus said that

whoever loses his life will find it. (See Matthew 10:39.) The 

Greek word used there for life is "soul." You have to lay down 

that soulish ego and say, "No." Then you will find the way inside. 

And fourth, we have a Great High Priest who knows exactly what 

needs to be done, and does it perfectly.

Chapter Eight 

Four Requirements Of True Worshipers 

Returning to the book of Hebrews, we see the four chief 

requirements of the true worshiper - what God expects of His 

worshipers if they are to avail themselves of what He has made 

available to them: 

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of 

faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 

conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  

(Hebrews 10:22) 

1. A True Heart 

What does a "true heart" mean? I will offer my opinion. Sincerity, 

honesty, loyalty, total commitment, no reservations - that is a true 

heart. 

If I love my wife with a true heart, I love her totally. I will not in 

any circumstance contemplate anything that would be disloyal to 

her. I think a word that we need to restore to our vocabulary is the 

word loyalty. Loyalty has become passe and out-of-date among 

some people today. Loyalty to your family. Loyalty to your 

country. 

What was it that made the apostle John stand in front of the cross 

by Mary's side when all the other disciples had fled? Was it 

theology? Not for a moment. It was loyalty. What was it that got 

Mary Magdalene to the tomb in the early hours of the morning? 

Was it doctrine? No, it was loyalty. She was going to be loyal to 

that man even if he was nothing but a brutally mutilated corpse. 

There does not seem to be much loyalty among some believers 

today. We must be loyal to Jesus and loyal to one another. That is 

a true heart. 

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in 

the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, 

and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy 

and gladness, that the bones You have broken may 

rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all 

my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and 

renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:6-10) 

The word behold is dramatic. David had been religious a long 

while, but now he had made a discovery, "You desire truth in the 

inward parts, and in the hidden part You will make me to know 

wisdom." I believe truth and wisdom go together. You don't know 

the hidden wisdom until you have truth in the inward parts. The 

revelation of hidden wisdom is not through the mind, but through 

the sincere, true, and honest heart. 

When sin has had its way in your heart, it can't be patched up, 

repaired, or modified. It takes a creative act of God to give you a 

clean heart. In Psalm 139, David was talking about God's 

enemies and said, 

Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I 

not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them 

with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies. (Psalm 

139:21-22) 

Is it right for a Christian to say that? Some people might say yes, 

and some would say no. David went to a different source: 

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and 

know my anxieties. (Psalm 139:23) 

David was asking God, "Is there something inside of me that is an 

enemy of God? See if there is something inside of me that is 

opposed to You." Can you invite God to do that? Do not be 

afraid. When it comes to confession, I tell people to remember 

that you are not going to confess anything to God that He does 

not already know. There will be no surprises. The confession is 

for your sake, not His. 

It takes a creative act Of God to give you a clean heart. 

See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in 

the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:24) 

Before God can lead us in this everlasting way, we have to allow 

Him to search and try our hearts - to root out any of God's 

enemies lurking there. Let God show you what is in your heart 

and then let Him deal with it. Lay it bare to Him. 

In Isaiah, it says, 

Therefore the LORD said: "Inasmuch as these people 

draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their 

lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and 

their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment 

of men...." (Isaiah 29:13) 

That is religion without heart. It honors God with the lips, but its 

heart is far from Him. The great sin of religious people was the 

one that Jesus dealt with most severely in the Pharisees: 

hypocrisy. Do you know what hypocrisy is? The word comes 

from the Greek word for actor. Religion is simply putting on an 

act. Ancient drama utilized several types of masks. When an actor 

portrayed different parts, he would put on different masks. Empty 

religion merely puts on a selection of masks - it is a way to act 

while you are in church. You will find that many religious people 

use even a different tone of voice inside the church. When they 

pray, they take on an artificial, false voice. 

And God says He has removed from the hypocrite the ability to 

see the truth: 

Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work 

among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; 

for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the 

understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden. 

(Isaiah 29:14) 

God wants worshipers with a true heart, no hypocrisy, no 

religious acts. He wants sincere hearts, loyal and true. I have 

heard it said that we translate faith by obedience. I would suggest 

that we translate faith by loyalty - loyalty to Christ at any cost. I 

think you will find they work to exactly the same end. 

2. Fullness of Faith 

So the first requirement of the true worshiper is a true heart. The 

next condition is fullness of faith. Do you have fullness of faith? 

Is it an effort or a struggle? Do you have to pinch yourself and 

say, "Am I full of faith?" No, faith is a decision. That is why 

unbelief is the primary sin. What is it to have fullness of faith? 

Let us look at the Psalms:

God wants sincere hearts, loyal and true, to worship Him. 

Therefore all Your precepts concerning all things I 

consider to be right; I hate every false way. (Psalm 

119:128) 

Whatever God says is right. Anything that disagrees with Him is 

a false way. That is not a feeling or emotion; that is a decision. I 

intend to agree with what God says. When I was saved and 

baptized in the Holy Spirit in an army barracks, not knowing 

anything about New Testament doctrine, I clutched hold of one 

fact: the Bible was the book with the answers. It is the Book that 

tells me what has happened to me. 

Intellectual arguments are basically an unwillingness to make a 

decision. If you wait until you understand the entire Bible before 

you will believe it, you will be waiting a long while. If you wait 

to understand everything about Jesus Christ before you accept 

Him, you will wait a long while. Faith is a decision in relation to 

Christ and the Scripture. I have made that decision, thank God. 

My mind is at rest. I have perfect inward peace. 

Casting down arguments and every high thing that 

exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing 

every thought into captivity to the obedience of 

Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) 

You can do what this verse describes. Inside you, there is a mind 

that is trained to argue with God. By nature, it is opposed to God. 

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Romans 8:7). 

It is your responsibility to suppress that enemy; refuse to give 

him liberty to speak.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who 

doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by 

the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will 

receive anything from the Lord; he is a double- 

minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:6-8) 

The double-minded, unstable, undecided person gets nowhere 

with God. Make up your mind from now on that what God says is 

right. That is the fullness of faith. 

But I must give you an additional warning the Lord gave me: 

And for this reason God will send them strong 

delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all 

may be condemned who did not believe the truth. (2 

Thessalonians 2:11-12) 

That Scripture should take your breath away if you are not 

familiar with it. It is very simple. If you don't believe the truth, 

you will believe a lie. That was Eve's choice. God told her the 

truth; Satan told her a lie. She had two options. She chose the lie - 

that is unbelief. What is unbelief? It is believing the lie. It does 

not mean believing in nothing; everybody believes in something. 

The decision is always the same - Will I believe God, or will I 

believe Satan? God says if you do not believe the truth, He will 

see to it that you believe the lie. 

The decision is always, "Will I believe God, or will I believe 

Satan?" 

Do not fool around with this. Do not believe just as much as it 

suits you and leave the rest. Incomplete obedience is 

disobedience. Incomplete belief is unbelief. You can receive the 

truth, or you can come under delusion. As this age closes, those 

are the only two options available to God's people. 

3. Hearts Sprinkled From An Evil Conscience 

The next requirement of the true worshiper is a heart sprinkled 

from an evil conscience. 

Much more then, having now been justified by His 

blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 

(Romans 5:9) 

Romans tells us that we are justified by the blood of Jesus. If you 

know my teaching, you know my definition of justified: "just-as- 

if-I'd" never sinned. That is how righteous the blood of Jesus 

makes us. There is no more guilty conscience for sin. 

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who 

are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1) 

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive 

us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

(1 John 1:9) 

If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence 

toward God. (1 John 3:21) 

On the other hand, if I am condemned in any way within my 

heart, I have no access to God.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not 

hear. (Psalm 66:18) 

You have to make a faith stand: "All my sins are forgiven. I have 

confessed them all. God has forgiven them all. The blood of Jesus 

Christ cleanses me from all unrighteousness. I am justified-just- 

as-if-I'd never sinned." Do you believe that? I do. I really believe 

it. I do not allow my mind to insinuate any religious doubt. I 

believe that God is faithful and just. I believe He has forgiven me 

all my sins and cleansed me from all unrighteousness. I do not 

have to cringe in the presence of God. I do not have to whimper. I 

can walk upright. "I have.. .made you walk upright" (Leviticus 

26:13). Hebrews goes one better than that: 

Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no 

more. (Hebrews 10:17) 

God does not have a bad memory; He is a great forgetter! There 

is a big difference. God remembers everything that He does not 

decide to forget. If He decides to forget it, He does not remember 

it anymore. 

4. Bodies Washed with Pure Water 

Did you know that the condition of your body affects your access 

to God? 

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of 

faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil 

conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 

(Hebrews 10:22)

What does it mean to have your body washed with pure water? 

What is the pure water? The pure water is the Word of God. How 

does God's Word purify us? 

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the 

truth through the Spirit. (1 Peter 1:22) 

God's Word purifies us through the Spirit. The Word, ministered 

by the Spirit and obeyed, purifies you. 

And everyone who has this hope in Him [Jesus Christ] 

purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 John 3:3) 

Obey the Word ministered to you through the Spirit, and you 

purify yourself. How pure must we be? Even as He is pure. There 

is only one standard that God has - Jesus. 

God has only one standard Jesus Christ. 

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that 

you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each 

of you should know how to possess his own vessel in 

sanctification and honor. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4) 

Your body is the vessel, and the Bible says it is the will of God 

that you should know how to keep that vessel unsoiled pure and 

holy. 

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you 

completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body 

be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord 

Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23) 

Scripture says your body should be preserved blameless unto the 

coming of the Lord. That is complete holiness. If your body is not 

preserved blameless, whatever that may mean, it is not total 

holiness. The will of God is that you should know how to possess 

this vessel in sanctification and honor. 

In 1 Corinthians 6, the main theme is the importance of the body. 

Most Christians grow up with the attitude that the body is not 

really that important. The Bible does not say that. Please note, it 

is not scriptural to belittle your body. 

All things are lawful for me, but all things are not 

helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be 

brought under the power of any. (1 Corinthians 6:12) 

It is all right for me to eat three ice cream sundaes, but it does not 

do me any good. Ice cream, cigarettes, and coffee should not be 

dictating to me. As Lester Sumrall once said, "The morning I 

wake up and feel I cannot do without a cup of coffee is the 

morning I will not drink it." That is a pretty good decision to 

make. When you become dependent on anything, you become 

enslaved by it. 

Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but 

God will destroy both it and them. (1 Corinthians 

6:13) 

Food for the stomach, and the stomach for food. But neither of 

them is permanent. Enjoy them while you have them; it will not 

be for long.

Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the 

Lord, and the Lord for the body.  (1 Corinthians 6:13) 

Most Christians would say "amen" to the first part of that verse, 

but what does it mean that your body is for the Lord, and the 

Lord for your body? 

And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise 

us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies 

are members of Christ? (1 Corinthians 6:14-15) 

Christ's members on earth are our physical members. That is all 

He has to work with. 

Shall I then take the members of Christ and make 

them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you 

not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body 

with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one 

flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit 

with Him. (1 Corinthians 6:15-17) 

Earlier we talked about the union of man's spirit with the Spirit of 

God in worship. Here again, we see the direct parallel between 

the relation of the prostitute and the spiritual relation to the Lord. 

He who is united in the love relationship with the Lord is one in 

spirit with Him. 

Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is 

outside the body, but he who commits sexual 

immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not 

know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit 

who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are 

not your own? For you were bought at a price; 

therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, 

which are God's. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20) 

A person united in a love relationship with the Lord is one in 

spirit with Him. 

Sexual sins defile the body. You do not belong to yourself, and 

that includes your body. You are the property of God. The 

supreme purpose of your body is to serve as a temple for the Holy 

Spirit. "The Most High does not dwell in temples made with 

hands" (Acts 7:48). You can build Him the nicest church or 

cathedral and He may come there when His people are there, but 

His dwelling place is the physical body of the redeemed believer. 

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the 

Son and of the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19) 

After you commits your life to Christ, you are baptized - 

submersed in a cleansing, sanctifying application of water. 

Everything that was offered to God on the altar of blood must be 

washed in the water. It is not to make you physically clean but to 

make you holy in the true sense of being set apart to God. Peter 

said, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized" (Acts 2:38). 

How many? All of you. Once you have done that, you are to 

present your body as a "living sacrifice." Paul wrote, 

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 

God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice... 

to God. (Romans 12:1)

Your body is sanctified when it is placed on God's altar. That is 

how to preserve your body in sanctification and honor. Keep it on 

the altar. Jesus said to the Pharisees, in effect, "You fools! It is not 

the gift that sanctifies the altar; it is the altar that sanctifies the 

gift." (See Matthew 23:18-19.) If you place your body on God's 

altar, as long as it is in contact with the altar, it is sanctified. But 

if you break the contact, you have lost your sanctification. 

Your body does not belong to you; it belongs to God. 

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, 

that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present 

your members as instruments of unrighteousness to 

sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from 

the dead, and your members as instruments of 

righteousness to God. (Romans 6:12-13) 

To summarize, you have your heart sprinkled from an evil 

conscience, you know your sins are forgiven, you know your 

heart is cleansed, and then you have your body washed with pure 

water - the pure water of the Word of God. You purify yourself by 

obeying the truth ministered to you by the Holy Spirit. The first 

purifying act after believing is being immersed, passing through 

the water, being set apart to God. After that, you lay your body, 

sanctified by blood and water, on the altar of God's service. You 

present every individual member to God as an instrument. And 

your body thereafter is a vessel for Him. It is the only instrument 

that Jesus Christ has on this earth by which to do His will at this 

time. Our members are the members of Christ.

Chapter Nine 

Our Physical Attitude Of Worship 

There is no such thing as motionless worship. There is no such 

thing as worship in which our body makes no response. Worship 

is intensely active. I've had the privilege of being able to read the 

Bible in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of 

the New Testament. Some time ago, I decided to look at all of the 

words that described worship in both languages. In doing so, I 

made a discovery that surprised me and altered my whole concept 

of worship. I discovered that every word that described worship 

also described a posture or position of the body, without 

exception. I will give you some examples by starting at the head 

and working downward. 

The Head 

In Genesis 24, Abraham's servant was sent to Mesopotamia to 

seek a bride for Abraham's son, Isaac. The servant did not know 

where he was going or whom he would meet. Without the servant 

realizing it, the Lord directed him to the family of Abraham's 

brother, which was the traditional way to seek a marriage in those 

times. And so, when the servant realized that the woman he met, 

Rebekah, was Abraham's niece, the Scripture says, "The man 

bowed down his head and worshiped the LORD" (Genesis 

24:26). 

Then, in Exodus, we have Moses and Aaron returning from the 

desert to bring word to the enslaved nation of Israel that God had 

come down and committed to deliver them from the Egyptians. 

After they delivered their message to the elders, we read, "So the 

people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited 

the children of Israel and that He had looked on their affliction, 

then they bowed their heads and worshiped" (Exodus 4:31). 

Bowing your head before God is a simple, but very significant, 

act. 

In some situations, other physical postures may be difficult, but 

there is hardly any situation in which you cannot bow your head. 

For instance, when Ruth and I have a meal in a restaurant we 

nearly always say a rather lengthy prayer of thanksgiving. In 

doing so it would be impossible for us to kneel or fall face down, 

but bowing the head is a thing that can be done almost anywhere. 

I encourage you, the next time you say grace before a meal, do 

not keep your head upright; bow it. It makes a total difference to 

your whole relationship with God. It is a simple, but very 

significant, act. 

The Hands 

One of the world's great worshipers was David. He gave us two 

different postures of the hands that represent worship. Psalm 63 

begins with these beautiful words: 

O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my 

soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry 

and thirsty land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1) 

David was in the wilderness of Judah when he offered this prayer 

to the Lord. Then he went on: 

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my 

lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live; 

I will lift up my hands in Your name. (Psalm 63:3-4)

The lifting up of your hands in the name of the Lord is an act of 

worship that is described many times in the Bible. 

In Psalm 141, David described this same posture of the hands: 

"Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my 

hands as the evening sacrifice" (Psalm 141:2). Incense tells us 

immediately that this is about worship. In the temple, there were 

both morning and evening sacrifices. David was asking God to 

accept the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice at the 

close of the day. 

Then, in Psalm 143, David described another posture of the 

hands: "I spread out my hands to You; my soul longs for You like 

a thirsty land" (Psalm 143:6). Notice the language of longing for 

God again. 

I think there is a difference in the significance of these two 

attitudes of the hands. When you lift up your hands, you are 

acknowledging God's majesty and sovereignty. When you spread 

out your hands, you are open to receive. 

One time, when Ruth and I were at a meeting in Holland, Ruth 

stretched out her hands while we were experiencing some really 

wonderful worship. Then she said to me, "My hands are getting 

so heavy I cannot hold them up." The Hebrew word for glory is 

the same word for weight: cheved and chevron. I told her, "God is 

putting His glory in your hands." 

I tell you this because I want you to see how real God is in 

dealing with our bodies. We are not just disembodied spirits 

floating around in the air; we are people who live in very real, 

physical bodies. And God wants complete control of our bodies 

in worship. 

When you lift up your hands, you acknowledge God's majesty 

and sovereignty. 

There is another activity of the hands that I love: "Oh, clap your 

hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph!" 

(Psalm 47:1). When we clap our hands we are worshiping God. 

Worship is not some rigid posture in which you sit; it is an 

activity of the entire body. 

The Knees 

Another person who spread out his hands to the Lord was King 

Solomon, when he dedicated the temple that he had built. But 

Solomon went a little further. He did not just spread out his 

hands, but he also went through into the next attitude of worship: 

Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in 

the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread 

out his hands (for Solomon had made a bronze 

platform five cubits long, five cubits wide, and three 

cubits high, and had set it in the midst of the court; 

and he stood on it, knelt down on his knees before all 

the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands 

toward heaven). (2 Chronicles 6:12-13) 

In Daniel there is the story of when King Darius decreed that 

worshipers who prayed to anyone other than himself would be 

cast into the lion's den. This was Daniel's response to the king's 

written decree: 

When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he 

went home. And in his upper room, with his windows 

open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees 

three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks 

before his God, as was his custom since early days.

(Daniel 6:10) 

Daniel had a regular practice of prayer, kneeling down toward 

Jerusalem (which is the way all Jews pray still, facing Jerusalem, 

no matter where they are in the world). So, both Solomon and 

Daniel knelt down in prayer. 

And then in Ephesians, Paul said: 

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our 

Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 3:14) 

When Paul prayed and worshiped, one of the things he normally 

did was to bow his knees. Bowing your knees is an act of total 

submission, which is very important. I find many Christians who 

are not totally submitted to God. They submit when God does 

what they like, but when God does things differently from what 

they want, they complain, argue, and get upset. 

Bowing your knees is an act of total submission, which is very 

important. 

One of the key words we need to learn today is sovereign. You 

don't hear that word much today, but it is a fact about God. He is 

absolutely sovereign. I would define it this way: God does what 

He wants, when He wants, the way He wants, and He asks no 

one's permission. The sooner you get a grip on that fact and bow 

your knees, the easier it will be for you to lead a victorious 

Christian life. God does things in our lives that we don't think He 

ought to do. Many of you may be holding on to some kind of 

complaint with Him. Be very careful of murmuring against God. 

Bowing the knee is an act of worship. At some point in the future,

everybody is going to do it. So you may as well beat the crowd 

and do it now. 

I have sworn by Myself.. that to Me every knee shall 

bow, every tongue shall take an oath. (Isaiah 45:23) 

At a certain point, God is going to insist that every living creature 

in the universe that has knees will acknowledge His total 

sovereignty. "Every knee shall bow." In Philippians, Paul 

indicated to whom the universe will bow. 

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given 

Him the name which is above every name, that at the 

name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in 

heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the 

earth. (Philippians 2:9-10) 

Falling Prostrate 

Now we come to the most - used description of worship in the 

Bible - falling prostrate on your face before God. This has a 

distinct meaning. It means total dependence upon God. It means, 

"Lord, I can do nothing without You. I cannot even start." As 

John Bunyan once said, 

He that is down need fear no fall; 

He that is low no pride. 

He that is humble ever shall have 

God to be his guide.

When you are face down on the floor, you have gone as low as 

you can go. There is only one way to go from there, and that is 

up. 

In Genesis 17, the Lord appeared to Abraham twice. It is a very 

important chapter because the Lord made an everlasting covenant 

with Abraham and his descendants to be their God and to give 

them that strip of land at the east end of the Mediterranean as an 

everlasting possession. So, the first time the Lord appeared to 

Abraham (or Abram, as he was called at that time), He said, 

"I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be 

blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me 

and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." Then 

Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him.  

(Genesis 17:1-3) 

Later in that same chapter, we read, 

Then God said to Abraham, `As for Sarai your wife, 

you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be 

her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son 

by her, then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother 

of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her." Then 

Abraham fell on his face and laughed. 

(Genesis 17:15-17) 

Incredible! How could the Lord say such a thing with Sarai, or 

Sarah now, being well past the age of bearing children? But at the 

right time, it happened. Abraham grew used to being on his face 

before God, doing it twice in Genesis 17. 

In Leviticus, there is another example of people falling prostrate 

before God: 

Fire came out from before the LORD and consumed 

the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all 

the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. 

(Leviticus 9:24) 

Actually, I do not believe they could have remained standing if 

they had tried. They were in the immediate presence of God, the 

Holy Spirit. Then, later we read in Numbers, 

So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the 

assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and 

they fell on their faces. And the glory of the LORD 

appeared to them. (Numbers 20:6) 

We continue to see examples throughout the Scriptures. Joshua 

fell on his face when the Commander of the army of the Lord 

appeared to him. (See Joshua 5:14.) When Elijah called down fire 

on the sacrifice on Mount Carmel, the whole nation "fell on their 

faces; and they said, `The LORD, He is God! The LORD, He is 

God!"' (1 Kings 18:39). Not one person was left standing. That is 

the response to the presence of God. In Ezekiel, we read, 

Like the appearance of a rainbow in a cloud on a 

rainy day, so was the appearance of the brightness all 

around it. This was the appearance of the likeness of 

the glory of the LORD. So when I saw it, I fell on my 

face, and I heard a voice of One speaking. 

(Ezekiel 1:28) 

I question whether any man or woman who has never been on his

or her face before God has ever been very close to God. You 

would have to search quite a way through the Bible to find any of 

the really great men of Scripture who had not been on their faces 

before God. I practice this posture of worship, not as a matter of 

legalism or ritual, but out of a need for security. I have found that 

the most secure place I know of is on my face before God. That is 

the way to greatness - get on your face before God. 

The most secure place I know of is on my face before God. 

Dancing Before The Lord 

There is one more act of worship described in the Scriptures. In 2 

Samuel, David had finally succeeded in getting the ark to 

Jerusalem after it had been captured by the Philistines and then 

stored for safe keeping. There had been several problems along 

the way. God killed a member of the first crew and they all had to 

learn an important lesson: the ark could only be touched by the 

Levites. Eventually, accompanied by all sorts of music, the ark 

was installed in Jerusalem, and Scripture records, 

Then David danced before the LORD with all his 

might; and David was wearing a linen ephod. (2 

Samuel 6:14) 

An ephod was an item of clothing that made you, in a sense, a 

priest. "David danced before the LORD with all his might." 

David was a mighty man of valor, so when he danced with all his 

might I don't think there was any muscle in his body that was not 

moving. I picture him leaping up and down, giving it his absolute 

all. That is worship. You are not really liberated until your entire 

body is liberated. 

But there is another side of this story:

Then David returned to bless his household. And 

Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, 

and said, "How glorious was the king of Israel today, 

uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of 

his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly 

uncovers himself!" So David said to Michal, "It was 

before the LORD, who chose me instead of your 

father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the 

people of the LORD, over Israel. Therefore I will play 

music before the LORD. And I will be even more 

undignified than this, and will be humble in my own 

sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have 

spoken, by them I will be held in honor." (2 Samuel 

6:20-22) 

And the last verse of this account reads, 

Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no 

children to the day of her death. (verse 23) 

And all because she despised her husband for dancing before the 

Lord. It is sad, but also very dangerous, to criticize people who 

are enjoying the Lord. They may not be proficient, and they may 

not be highly educated, but God likes it. He wants to be enjoyed. 

So be careful not to judge. 

It is important to worship God with the whole body. Jesus said we 

must worship in spirit and in truth. Paul said, "May your whole 

spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless" (1 Thessalonians 

5:23). Remember what we learned earlier: total personality is 

spirit, soul, and body. You need to get your whole personality in 

tune with God and responding to God, as He desires.

It is important to worship God with the whole body. 

Our Material Act Of Worship 

Another way in which we may worship God in the physical realm 

is in our material offerings. God wants us to see our money as 

something holy, something that we need to offer to Him in 

worship. Without doing so, our worship is incomplete. 

In Exodus, God gave regulations for how every male Israelite 

would travel to the temple in Jerusalem three times a year to offer 

worship and to celebrate before God. 

Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 

You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you 

shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I 

commanded you, at the time appointed in the month 

of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall 

appear before Me empty). (Exodus 23:14-15) 

This was part of God's ordinance for worship and celebration in 

the temple. They were to go at God's appointed time and in God's 

appointed way, and no Israelite was to appear before Him empty- 

handed. There needed to be an offering as part of the celebration 

and worship. 

In Psalm 96, the psalmist said, 

Give to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an 

offering, and come into His courts. Oh, worship the 

LORD in the beauty of holiness! (Psalm 96:8-9)

In other words, "Do not come without an offering." In this 

passage we see three important facts about an offering (be it 

financial or anything else) to God. First, it gives glory to God. 

The psalmist said, "Give to the LORD the glory due His name; 

bring an offering." How are we to give glory to God? By bringing 

an offering. 

Next it says, "Bring an offering, and come into His courts." 

Bringing an offering gives us access to God's courts. We have no 

right to claim access to God if we do not come with an offering. 

Remember the passage from Exodus: "None shall appear before 

Me empty" (Exodus 23:15). If you want to appear before God, to 

come into His courts, you have to bring an offering. 

And third, it says to "worship the LORD in the beauty of 

holiness!" (Psalm 96:9). We are to worship Him in exactly the 

same context. 

So, bringing an offering is a God-appointed part of our worship, 

and our worship is not complete until we bring our offering to 

Him. When we give our money to God, we are giving a very 

important part of our lives. Most of us would say that we put a 

major part of our lives into the work that brings in our income. 

When we offer to God the appointed portion of our income, we 

are really offering ourselves to God. We are actually giving Him 

our time, our strength, and our talents. Really, there is nothing 

more holy that we can offer to God than ourselves. God tells us, 

"If you want to come into My courts, if you want to appear before 

Me, if you want to give glory to Me, if you want to worship Me 

in the beauty of holiness, bring your offering." So, bringing an 

offering, worship, and holiness are all very closely connected in 

God's plan for your life. 

When we offer our income, we are actually giving our time, 

strength, and talents.

God Keeps An Account 

Here is another important point that many of God's people do not 

fully understand: God keeps a record of what His people offer. 

Numbers 7 is a very long chapter - it has eighty-nine verses, and 

most of it is given over to describing what the twelve princes or 

leaders of the tribes of Israel offered to God. Each of them 

offered exactly the same things but the amazing thing is that each 

of the offerings is described in detail, item by item. God does not 

merely say, "The second prince offered the same as the first." He 

does not say, "All the twelve princes each offered this." No, 

Scripture goes through each and every item of each one. Now, the 

Bible is a very economic book - it does not waste space. So when 

God does this, He is illustrating to us how carefully He records 

what we offer to Him. Here is the account of the first prince's 

offering: 

So the leaders offered their offering before the altar. 

For the LORD said to Moses, "They shall offer their 

offering, one leader each day, for the dedication of the 

altar." And the one who offered his offering on the 

first day was Nahshon the son of Amminadab, from 

the tribe of Judah. His offering was one silver platter, 

the weight of which was one hundred and thirty 

shekels, and one silver bowl of seventy shekels, 

according to the shekel of the sanctuary, both of them 

full of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering; one 

gold pan of ten shekels, full of incense; one young bull, 

one ram, and one male lamb in its first year, as a 

burnt offering; one kid of the goats as a sin offering; 

and for the sacrifice of peace offerings: two oxen, five 

rams, five male goats, and five male lambs in their 

first year. This was the offering of Nahshon the son of 

Amminadab. (Numbers 7:10-17)

God kept an absolute record of what each leader offered, in 

specific detail, and caused it to be preserved in Scripture. 

But this accounting is not just reserved for ancient Old Testament 

ritual. Notice in Mark how Jesus Himself carefully observed the 

givers: 

Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the 

people put money into the treasury. And many who 

were rich put in much. Then one poor widow came 

and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. So 

He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, 

`Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put 

in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 

for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out 

of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole 

livelihood." (Mark 12:41-44) 

There are two points here: first, Jesus observed what everybody 

gave and estimated its true value; and second, God measures 

what we give by what we keep. The one who put in the least, in 

actual value, Jesus said gave the most because she had nothing 

left. So bear that in mind; when God estimates what you give, He 

looks at what you keep. 

God measures what we give by what we keep. 

And one final point: one day, each of us will give account to God: 

"So then each of us shall give account of himself to God" 

(Romans 14:12). This is the future for each one of us. The phrase, 

"shall give account," in the original Greek, is used primarily of a 

financial account - not exclusively, but primarily. So, according to 

Scripture, every one of us is going to give a financial account to 

God. 

God does not need our money, but He knows that our attitude 

about our money reveals our true attitude toward God Himself. 

As Jesus said, 

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate 

the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to 

the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God 

and mammon. (Matthew 6:24) 

We are faced with a choice. If we serve God, we do not serve 

mammon, the evil, spiritual force that controls and manipulates 

people through their attitude toward money. If our attitude toward 

God is right, then our attitude toward money will be right also. If 

we hold on to God, if we cling to Him, if we worship Him, then 

we will despise mammon; we will not let that evil, satanic power 

dictate to us. Love God or love mammon; there is no third 

possibility, no neutrality. 

Worship is only to God. You can praise men; you can thank men; 

but you must not worship anybody but the Lord. This is the 

unique act by which we say, "God, You're our God. We worship 

You. We do not merely stand up and say we worship You; we 

kneel down and we stretch out our hands and we bow down and 

we fall on our faces and we worship You with all that we are and 

all that we have." Worshiping the Lord our God deserves the 

involvement of our entire being.

Chapter Ten 

The Inevitability Of Worship 

Ultimately, man's choice is not whether he will worship, but only 

whom he will worship. 

This issue is stated very clearly in the words God spoke to Israel 

from Mt. Sinai, words we refer to as the Ten Commandments. 

Here is what God said to Israel on that occasion: 

And God spoke all these words, saying: "I am the 

LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of 

Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no 

other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself 

a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in 

heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is 

in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down 

to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, 

am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers 

on the children to the third and fourth generations of 

those who hate Me." (Exodus 20:1-5) 

I want to draw your attention to certain important points in this 

passage. First, God will not share worship with anyone or 

anything. If we worship God, we worship Him alone, and He 

only has the right to receive that worship. There is no other 

person or being or object in the universe to which we may offer 

our worship except to the true God. 

Second, bowing down is always an indication of worship. 

Referring to forbidden idols, God said, "You shall not bow down 

to them" (Exodus 20:5). Bowing down and worshiping are 

synonymous. 

God will not share the worship that belongs to Him with anyone 

or anything. 

The third point is very serious: the evil consequences of 

misdirected worship extend to our descendants. God says He will 

punish the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and 

fourth generation. This type of generational punishment does not 

result from other sins that men commit; this particular sin is so 

unique and so grievous - worshiping any other God than the true 

God - that God says it will be carried on in its consequences to 

the third and fourth generation of those who practice it. 

The Grain Offering 

The book of Leviticus refers to an Old Testament material 

offering, but, as with many Old Testament practices, it relates to 

the spiritual realm and particularly to worship. 

When anyone offers a grain offering to the Lord, his 

offering shall be of fine flour. And he shall pour oil on 

it, and put frankincense on it. (Leviticus 2:1) 

This grain offering was meal or flour that had to be ground into 

very small particles. As I stated before, this typifies our offering - 

our lives - to God. God wants our lives ground very small. He 

wants everything so He can deal with it without our resistance or 

opposition to His will. 

When we offer our lives to God there are two figurative actions 

we must take: we must pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it. 

All through the Bible, oil is invariably a metaphor for the Holy 

Spirit. We cannot offer anything to God unless the Holy Spirit 

enables us to offer it. 

Frankincense is a kind of aromatic gum that comes from trees. In 

its natural state, it is usually white in color and has no particular 

attractive qualities. But when it is burned, it sends forth a 

beautiful and distinctive aroma that typifies worship. In fact, in 

most instances in the Bible where you find the word describing 

incense or scent or aroma, it refers to worship. 

So, when we offer ourselves to the Lord, we have to do it by the 

Holy Spirit, and we have to do it with worship. But something 

different happens to the frankincense: 

He shall bring it to Aaron's sons, the priests, one of 

whom shall take from it his handful of fine flour and 

oil with all the frankincense. And the priest shall burn 

it as a memorial on the altar, an offering made by fire, 

a sweet aroma to the LORD. (Leviticus 2:2) 

There has to be a priest to make the offering. He takes a small 

portion of flour and the oil and casts it into the fire of the 

offering. But - and this is very important - he includes all of the 

frankincense. The worship (the frankincense) goes only to the 

Lord. It is a sin to offer worship, to give frankincense, to anyone 

but the Lord. I believe this is a lesson that many high profile 

Christians need to learn. In recent decades, we have seen too 

many distinguished, well-known figures come tumbling down in 

disaster and disgrace. I think one reason may be that they have 

sometimes permitted their followers to take a little of the 

frankincense and give it to the preacher.

As a preacher, I never want frankincense. Often people will 

approach me with flattering words, for which I am grateful, but 

worship goes to one person only - and that's God. Remember, 

anyone whom we worship becomes our god. If we worship the 

preacher, we are making him our god. And that is a terrible thing 

to do. 

Worship inevitably leads to service. 

Worship And Service 

In many biblical passages relating to worship you will notice that 

worship inevitably leads to service. Whatever we worship, 

ultimately, we will serve. This is brought out very clearly in the 

dialogue between Jesus and Satan when Jesus was tempted to fall 

down and worship him. Of the three temptations in the 

wilderness, this was the ultimate temptation. 

Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high 

mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the 

world and their glory. And he said to Him, `All these 

things I will give You if You will fall down and 

worship me." Then Jesus said to him, `Away with you, 

Satan! For it is written, `You shall worship the LORD 

your God, and Him only you shall serve."' 

(Matthew 4:8-10) 

Notice the order and the connection here: worship first, then 

serve. So many Christians try to reverse the order, but it does not 

work. Serving without worshiping is not the same thing. 

But there is also a functional connection. The more we worship 

any person or thing, the more certain are the consequences that 

will emerge in our lives: first, the more complete becomes our 

commitment to the person or thing; and second, the more we will 

take on the identity of the person or thing. Worship inevitably 

leads to commitment and identification. Hence, worship is the 

ultimate decision, and none of us can evade it. Man was 

originally created to worship. He cannot change this aspect of his 

nature. All he can change is the direction of that worship - from 

the true God to a false god. 

Man was originally created to worship. 

Let me give you a few examples of the false gods men commonly 

worship. First are actual idols. All over the world, in every 

culture, you will find idols of wood and stone that are worshiped. 

The common term we use for this is idolatry. 

Second, people frequently worship their own physical desires and 

pleasures. These become their god. The name often used for the 

worship of pleasure is hedonism. 

Third are money and material possessions. Millions of people 

around the world have made money their god. The Bible refers to 

this form of idolatry as covetousness. 

Fourth would be human political leaders, such as Hitler or Lenin. 

It is interesting that those who reject the Bible and reject the true 

God with their political philosophies often end up with an 

alternative, human target for their worship. 

Last, there are the founders of various cults and false religious 

ideologies. The tragic events associated with Jonestown, Guyana, 

and Waco, Texas, are the results of worshiping the leader of a 

false cult.

Worship And The End Times 

What do these types of false worship all have in common? They 

all lead to the same ultimate person: Satan. Satan desires worship 

because it uniquely sets forth his claim to be equal with God. 

Earlier I stated that worship belongs to God alone. So when Satan 

can receive worship, it reasserts his claim to equality with God. 

This was what caused Satan's fall in the first place, as described 

in the book of Isaiah: "How you are fallen from heaven, O 

Lucifer, son of the morning!" (Isaiah 14:12). Morning Star and 

Lucifer were two of Satan's titles. In the verses that follow, the 

prophet reveals the inner motivation of Satan that caused him to 

rebel against the true God: 

For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into 

heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; 

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the 

farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the 

heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." 

(Isaiah 14:13-14) 

Notice the one phrase that is repeated five times: "I will." That is 

the essence of Satan's rebellion, the setting of his will in 

opposition to the will of God. And, in the last words, we find the 

ultimate ambition of Satan: "I will be like the Most High." Again, 

equality with God remains the ultimate goal of Satan. And the 

one way he can claim it is by receiving worship, because when he 

does, he is identified, in a certain sense, as a god. 

According to Scripture, there will be a brief period of time when 

Satan will come close to achieving this ambition here on earth: 

Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast 

rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten 

horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads 

a blasphemous name. Now the beast which I saw was 

like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and 

his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave 

him his power, his throne, and great authority. 

(Revelation 13:1-2) 

A full study of this passage reveals that the beast is a human ruler, 

but the dragon is Satan himself. Now look at the consequences: 

So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to 

the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who 

is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" 

(Revelation 13:4) 

We must ask ourselves, Whom do I worship? Who is my God? 

This is the way human history is headed in its rebellion against 

God. Satan is moving and working throughout the earth, upon 

nations and upon political leaders everywhere with the one 

supreme objective of gaining their worship. Eventually, he will 

find a political leader whom he can so empower that this man 

will receive humanity's worship. And through him, Satan will 

receive worship as well. 

Because of this, we really need to be crystal clear on one 

question: Whom do I worship? Who is my God? Jesus provided 

us with the only correct answer to that question: 

Away with you, Satan! For it is written, "You shall 

worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall 

serve." (Matthew 4:10)

Are you willing to say that? "I will worship the Lord" and "I will 

serve Him only"? That is the most important decision you can 

make. It will determine your eternal destiny.

Chapter Eleven 

Worshiping At The Throne 

Some time ago, I said to Ruth, "We do not read Revelation often 

enough. It is a hard book to understand, but that does not mean 

that we should not read it." So we read it through once, but we 

did not get anything out of it. We read it through a second time - 

but again, nothing. I said, "Never mind; it is the Word of God; we 

will read it." The third time, something clicked. After that, 

whenever Ruth would ask what we should read, she knew what I 

would say - Revelation 4 and 5. 

Revelation 4 is about the throne room of heaven; this is the place 

from which the universe is run. The one key word in this chapter 

is the word throne. In eleven verses the word occurs fourteen 

times. Within this throne room there is one supremely 

characteristic activity: worship. 

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, 

and is, and is to come." Whenever the living creatures 

give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the 

throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty- 

four elders fall down before him who sits on the 

throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. 

They lay their crowns before the throne. (Revelation 

4:8-10 NIV) 

One activity characterizes the heavenly throne room, and that is 

worship. 

That is the pattern of worship in heaven; they fall down before 

the One who sits on the throne. I remember singing an old hymn 

in church: "All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels 

prostrate fall; bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him...Lord 

of all." I remember looking at churchgoers standing stiffly in their 

pews and singing, "Let angels prostrate fall." Most would say, 

"Well, that may be fine for angels, but do not ask me to do 

anything so undignified!" But that is how it is done in heaven. I 

know I am perfectly content to worship the way they worship 

there. 

In Revelation, we have a scene of the One who sits on the throne 

with a scroll, which is the unfolding disclosure of the book of 

Revelation. A strong angel says with a loud voice, "Who is 

worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" (Revelation 5:2 

NIV). No one is strong enough; no one can do it in all of heaven. 

John, the writer of Revelation, begins to weep because he wants 

to know what is in the scroll. Then, one of the elders says to him, 

"Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of 

David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven 

seals" (Revelation 5:5 NIV). 

John turns around, expecting to see this Lion, but only sees a 

Lamb, who looks as if it has been slain. John says, 

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, 

standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the 

four living creatures and the elders. He had seven 

horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of 

God sent out into all the earth. He came and took the 

scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the 

throne. (Revelation 5:6-7 NIV) 

What follows is an inspiring description of the entire heavenly 

realm engaging in worship:

When he had taken it, the four living creatures and 

the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. 

Each one had a harp and they were holding golden 

bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the 

saints. And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to 

take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were 

slain, and with your blood you purchased men for 

God from every tribe and language and people and 

nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and 

priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the 

earth." (Revelation 5:8-10 NIV) 

Notice what the elders do. They fall down. And notice how our 

prayers come before the presence of the Lord - in golden bowls 

full of incense. What does incense represent? Worship! This is the 

first circle of worship, the four living creatures and the twenty- 

four elders who fall down and praise God for His mighty act of 

redemption through Jesus. Then, John continues: 

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, 

numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten 

thousand times ten thousand. (Revelation 5:11 NIV) 

Incidentally, this is the way the Chinese language still indicates 

millions - ten thousand times ten thousand is a hundred million. 

And then there are millions more. When you consider that one 

angel, in one night, could destroy 185,000 Assyrian soldiers (see 

2 Kings 19:35), you wonder what we should ever have to worry 

about. 

In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who 

was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom 

and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Then I 

heard every creature in heaven and on earth and 

under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, 

singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the 

Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for 

ever and ever!" (Revelation 5:12-13 NIV) 

Every creature to the farthest bounds of the universe involved in 

one thing: worshiping Him. And then: 

The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the 

elders fell down and worshiped. (Revelation 5:14 NIV) 

They fall down and worship Him who lives forever and ever. 

What an inspiring picture. The center of the universe is the 

throne, and it extends in ever widening circles to the utmost 

bounds of the universe. Everyone and everything, doing only one 

thing: worshiping. And who is at the center? The Lamb. What a 

glorious day that will be. Amen.

About The Author 

Derek Prince 

Derek Prince (1915-2003) was born in Bangalore, India, into a 

British military family. He was educated as a scholar of classical 

languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic) at Eton College 

and Cambridge University in England and later at Hebrew 

University, Israel. As a student, he was a philosopher and self- 

proclaimed atheist. He held a fellowship in ancient and modern 

philosophy at King's College, Cambridge. 

While in the British Medical Corps during World War II, Prince 

began to study the Bible as a philosophical work. Converted 

through a powerful encounter with Jesus Christ, he was baptized 

in the Holy Spirit a few days later. This life-changing experience 

altered the whole course of his life, which he thereafter devoted 

to studying and teaching the Bible as the Word of God. 

Discharged from the army in Jerusalem in 1945, he married Lydia 

Christensen, founder of a children's home there. Upon their 

marriage, he immediately became father to Lydia's eight adopted 

daughters - six Jewish, one Palestinian Arab, and one English. 

Together, the family saw the rebirth of the state of Israel in 1948. 

In the late 1950s, the Princes adopted another daughter while he 

was serving as principal of a college in Kenya. 

In 1963, the Princes immigrated to the United States and pastored 

a church in Seattle. Stirred by the tragedy of John F. Kennedy's 

assassination, he began to teach Americans how to intercede for 

their nation. In 1973, he became one of the founders of 

Intercessors for America. His book Shaping History through 

Prayer and Fasting has awakened Christians around the world to 

their responsibility to pray for their governments. Many consider 

underground translations of the book as instrumental in the fall of

communist regimes in the USSR, East Germany, and 

Czechoslovakia. 

Lydia Prince died in 1975, and Derek married Ruth Baker (a 

single mother to three adopted children) in 1978. He met his 

second wife, like his first, while he was serving the Lord in 

Jerusalem. Ruth died in December 1998 in Jerusalem, where they 

had lived since 1981. 

Until a few years before his own death in 2003 at the age of 

eighty-eight, Prince persisted in the ministry God had called him 

to as he traveled the world, imparting God's revealed truth, 

praying for the sick and afflicted, and sharing his prophetic 

insights into world events in the light of Scripture. He wrote over 

fifty books, which have been translated in over sixty languages 

and distributed worldwide. He pioneered teaching on such 

groundbreaking themes as generational curses, the biblical 

significance of Israel, and demonology. 

Derek Prince Ministries, with its international headquarters in 

Charlotte, North Carolina, continues to distribute his teachings 

and to train missionaries, church leaders, and congregations 

through its worldwide branch offices. His radio program, Keys to 

Successful Living (now known as Derek Prince Legacy Radio), 

began in 1979 and has been translated into over a dozen 

languages. Estimates are that Derek Prince's clear, 

nondenominational, nonsectarian teaching of the Bible has 

reached more than half the globe. 

Internationally recognized as a Bible scholar and spiritual 

patriarch, Derek Prince established a teaching ministry that 

spanned six continents and more than sixty years. In 2002, he 

said, "It is my desire - and I believe the Lord's desire - that this 

ministry continue the work, which God began through me over 

sixty years ago, until Jesus returns."