REVERENCE IN WORSHIP by E. J. Burnham

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 2, 1901

REVERENCE IN WORSHIP.

By E. J. Burnham

It is always our privilege to look to God as our Father. All around us are evidences of His loving care. He supplies our needs, sympathizes with us in our cares and perplexities, has compassion for us in our sorrows and afflictions, and mercy and forgiveness for us when our mistakes and sins make us loathsome in our own eyes. We know that “the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind;” that “like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.” Ps. 103:13, 14.

But God is infinite in wisdom and power, in holiness and justice, as well as in love and pity. These attributes inspired reverence and awe in the prophets and holy men of old, and they may well awaken the same emotions in us.

“I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved,” exclaimed the patriarch Jacob after his night of wrestling at the ford Jabbok. Gen. 32:30.

In the same spirit Isaiah says: “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” As this sublime vision of the great God passed before the prophet he cried out in self-abasement, “Woe is me! for I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isa. 6:1–5.

Reverence was required of those who approached God. When the Lord spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, He commanded, “Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place wherein thou standest is holy ground.” Ex. 3:5.

When He was about to descend upon Mount Sinai, Moses was told to sanctify the people, and “let them wash their clothes;” and bounds were set about the mountain. Ex. 19:10–13.

In the sanctuary, too, limits were set for the people. Everything was done to impress the Israelite that his God was holy, and His presence sacred.

Christ taught the same lesson when He drove out of the temple “those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money,” who were marring its sanctity by turning the courts of the house of God into a noisy mart of business. John 2:13–16.

Not less reverence is demanded of us; for the character of God

changes not. Through Christ we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace.” Heb. 4:16. We may “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.” Ps. 100:4. But whether in the closet, at the family altar, or in the assembly of His people, we should come into the presence of the God of the whole earth with reverence and humility: “God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.” Eccl. 5:2.

“God is in heaven, and man below; Be short our prayers, our words be few; A solemn reverence checks our songs, And praise sits silent on our tongues.

“Thee while the first bright angel sings, He hides his face behind his wings, And ranks of shining hosts around Fall worshiping, and spread the ground.”

E. J. BURNHAM.