Bible Commentaries

WORSHIP A SIGHT OF GOD

‘But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy: and in Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple.’

Psalms 5:7

Belief in God is the great regenerating force in the world. Not to believe in God is to be without the grandest idea which can exalt the mind, and the noblest motive for moral attainment. But faith in God depends upon culture. We are born capable of believing in God, but we are not born believers in God. When a man begins to neglect his place of worship he loses one of the things which keep faith in God alive within him. The man who attends, even if it be but as a matter of form, cannot so much resist the influences around him but that he will be less sordid as well as being in the way of something still higher than if he did not attend. But if faith in God is to be a power ennobling a man’s life, it must have some finer education than can be had from mere formal attendance at church; it must, in very fact, be a sight of God.

I. By worship I do not mean all sorts of religious services.—There is one particular state of mind which is properly called worship. There are states of mind and feeling which primarily look within upon self, and there are other states which primarily look without upon something which is not self, something which attracts the mind by its own intrinsic worth or worthiness. And this is the real meaning of the word ‘worship.’ The prime thought is not the profit or pleasure which may come to me, but the worth or worthiness of that which I see.

II. Of the self-regarding states we may take as illustrations the different appetites and passions with which we are endowed.—Prayer as we understand and practise it belongs to the class of self-regarding states. It looks to God, but it does not seem to stay fixed upon Him, but comes back upon itself with the answers to its petitions. Prayer looks to God that it may get something from Him; worship looks to Him, and is entranced, and fascinated, and spell-bound by what He is in Himself. Thus worship implies a sight of God.

III. Such rare moments of worship are not to be had without effort.—We cannot drop into a grand view of God as we drop into our seats at church. To such an elevation we must climb, and not until this high communion is reached can the full ravishment of worship hold fast in its attraction the self-forgetting soul.

Dean Page-Roberts.

Illustration

‘The love of God’s house is evident in the Psalms, the pain of separation from its services is keenly felt. Light and colour overflow from the ordinance and sanctuary upon history, life, feeling, personal experience. The ceremonial is transfigured into thought, the thought into prayer.’