Redeemed for Worship: Ultimately with R.C. Sproul

SPROUL: Why did God command that  Pharaoh let these slaves go? Casual worship is a contradiction  in terms. No person ever comes   into the immediate presence of  a holy God in a cavalier manner. You know the story, how the Jewish people had  been enslaved under the tyranny of Pharaoh and   forced to make bricks even without straw.  And they were miserable, and they cried,   and they wept, and they groaned until, finally,  we read in the Scriptures that God said, “I have   heard the groaning of My people,” and God then  appeared in the Midianite wilderness to Moses. You know the story: “Moses, take  off your shoes from off your feet,   for the ground whereon you’re standing is  holy ground.” And God gave the command to   Moses to go to the court of Pharaoh, the most  powerful leader on the face of the globe. And   he went as a Midianite shepherd with a  message from God, and you know the story,   Moses goes to Pharaoh with this message from  God that says simply, “Let My people go.”

Now, for the rest of the story. Why did God  command that Pharaoh let these slaves go? Was   it simply because God was acting to rescue them  from the misery of their experience in slavery?   Certainly, that was an important element  of it, but it’s not the rest of the story;   it’s not all of the story that Moses was commanded  to speak to Pharaoh. He said, “Let My people go,   so”—that is for the purpose of—“that they may  come to My mountain and worship Me there.” Now, that dramatic story of rescue  in the Old Testament had as its   ultimate goal that these people who were  rescued might come and worship God. And   if we fast-forward to the New Testament, and we  see the elaborate work of redemption that Christ,   the new Moses, had accomplished for us in  saving His people, we know what He saved  

them from. He saved them from the wrath of God.  But the question is, What did He save him for?   And the ultimate answer to that  question, beloved, is for worship. One of my greatest concerns for the church in  our day is that worship in so many churches has   become casual. Casual worship is a contradiction  in terms. No person ever comes into the immediate   presence of a holy God in a cavalier manner. You  don’t come into the presence of God dressed like   you were going to the beach. And sometimes  we reveal how casually we take the whole   experience of worship. But beloved, when we  come to worship, this is holy ground. And we   come not with a servile fear, but with a godly  fear—a sense of reverence before Him, a sense of   fear and trembling that was experienced by the  disciples in that boat on the Sea of Galilee.  

Yes, they were frightened—and they should  have been frightened because they were in the   presence of the Holy One of Israel, before whom  even the demons from hell screamed in terror. And so, we come to church for so many  different reasons: to experience fellowship,   and that’s a wonderful thing; some people come  to be entertained; some people come to learn   pop psychology lessons and all the rest. But the  reason that we are to come if we are mature in our   faith, is to worship Him, to bow down before Him,  to sing our praises to Him, to offer the sacrifice   of praise to our God, and to adore Him with the  fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.

NARRATOR: Thank you for listening. Ultimately  with R.C. Sproul is just one of many podcasts   produced by Ligonier Ministries.  Check the show notes to find others   you might enjoy or search for Ligonier  Ministries in your favorite podcast app.