 Turn with me to the book of Isaiah and the first chapter and follow along as I read verses 10 through 16. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah, to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me, says the Lord. I've had enough of burnt offerings of grams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. The new moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure iniquity in the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They are a trouble to me. I am weary of burying them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Seize to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Rebuke the oppressor. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Now just to summarize where we have been thus far today, the worship of God is the ultimate priority. We worship God because he deserves it and because he demands it. Worship is unacceptable to God when sin separates man from man or man from God. There's any theme in my opinion for this conference. It is a call back to reverence for God in worship. The church in my opinion has lost for the most part any sense of reverence. And I believe that's because we've lost sight of the otherness of God. We've become too familiar with God. And it's unfortunately true that familiarity breeds contempt. Now if the worship of God is the most noble act of which man is capable, then great preparation must go into it. It's a sign of our low esteem for worship that we spend so little of any time at all preparing for it. Think back to last Sunday. What was involved in getting ready for the worship service? And how much time did you spend preparing for it? For most folks, the entire routine consisted of getting out of bed, having something to eat, showering, dressing, crimping, and driving. But none of that is in any way related to spiritual preparation. John Willison, not Wilson, but Willith's son was a great Scottish preacher. He said, if we consider the nature of Sabbath work and our unfitness for it, preparation for it will be found very needful. We are called upon this day to make solemn and near approaches to that God who is a glorious spirit and a whole communion with him who is infinitely holy. And is it not very necessary that we, who are naturally carnal and involved in worldly business throughout the week, should endeavor to abstract our thoughts from worldly things so that we may not draw night as so great a God on this holy day? For holy performances, God requires us to make holy preparations. When Christ prepares a table for you in the gospel and furnishes it with all the dainties of heaven, pardon, peace, love, grace, and eternal life, should you not empty your stomach, cleanse your heart, adorn your soul, and make ready to feast with your Redeemer? End quote. So in this session, we want to look first at the why of preparing and then secondly at the how of preparing for the worship of God. First, the sanctity of worship demands that we prepare for it. In Exodus 19, the people were to be consecrated inside and cleansed outside before meeting with God in His worship. In that passage in Exodus 19, the people spent two days preparing for one day of worship. Now we don't need to make a neat little formula and say we should spend twice as much time preparing as we do worshiping. That wouldn't be a bad idea or formula. First Chronicles 22 shows that great preparation was made to build God's house and shall not just as great preparation be made to worship in it. Think of the plans, the drawings, the architect's work that went into nothing more than building a place to worship God. Architect put in the most minute details and that just for a building. And yet this building is nothing more than wood, nails, plaster, and carpeting. The only thing that makes this building significant is the activity that takes place here. There's nothing at all holy about the building. What is holy is what happens here. And if that much time and preparation goes into a building that's only useful when it's being used for the worship of God, how much more time and more preparation should go into the actual act of worship that makes this building worth anything at all? First Chronicles 22 tells us to set our heart and soul to seek the Lord. The Hebrew word that we translate set literally means give yourself. Give yourself to seek the Lord. It's to be an obsession. It's to be a passion. It's to be a lifelong pursuit. I mean didn't the Apostle Paul say I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified? Think of that. Here's the Apostle Paul who had by the age of 21 the equivalent of two doctors degrees. He's considered by even secular minds as one of the greatest minds of ancient world. He saw things most people couldn't even dream about. He went to seminary personally with Jesus for three years. Wow, Paul. You could have made a killing on TBN. Man, you could have charged a ton. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I don't think it's any stretch to say if that's what he determined to know, that's what we ought to strive to know. I hear preachers on the radio who are experts in eschatological things and I've never heard them give the gospel. And I wonder if they know what it is. Paul was an example of someone who said his heart and soul to seek the Lord. That's an example of someone who gave himself to a worthy pursuit. Second, the purity of worship demands that we prepare for it. As we saw in the last hour, no worship takes place until we are clean. So if there's no purity, we can't be said to be seeking him. And according to that Psalm 24 passage, there's only one type of person who has any business and a worship service, he who has clean hands and a pure heart. And the passage identifies such people as those who are seeking the Lord. So if our hands are not clean and our hearts are not pure, we will not receive a blessing from the Lord and we are not seeking the face of the Lord. But we're commanded to seek the Lord. Therefore, we must cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. One of the most impactful things I've ever done, and this was years ago, I made an effort to call or contact somehow everyone I knew I defended and asked their forgiveness. And I remember when I put the phone down after the last call, I just leaned back, put my head down and sobbed for at least 30 minutes. It felt so good to be clean. 1 Peter 2 tells us to lay aside all malice and guile and slander and envy. And it says, only then will we desire the pure milk of the Word. Have you ever felt like I don't have any spiritual appetite? Now you know what's wrong. It's not the preaching. It's not the scripture text that you didn't care for was preached this morning. You don't have an appetite. It's because your sin has squelched that appetite in you. Puritans used to say it this way, either kill your sin or your sin will kill you. Now notice the order of things there in Peter were first to lay aside all of these sins. And I hope you notice that those are all sins of the heart, not sins of the flesh. And only then will we desire the pure milk of the Word. As we read in Isaiah 1, we trample God's courts because of our uncleanness. And it would be a legitimate question to raise. Well, how do I do that? I'm never anything but sinful. Everything I do seems like it's sin. How do I clean myself up, so to speak? Well, there's a difference between being a sinful creature and having sin on us that we will not deal with. Of course, you're a sinful creature. That doesn't mean that you have to pile up and amass sins that you don't deal with. Listen to what God says. I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. There's one nice thing about being a Christian. It's that being a sinner is an absolute prerequisite for membership. I mean, the apostle John says, if we say we have no sin, we make him a liar. So we're not saying by coming to worship that we're not sinners. What we are saying is that I'm coming here because I need cleansing. But it doesn't follow that we can come to worship with sin that we do not desire to have purged. We're to deal with the sin before we come to offer any sacrifices of praise. And anything else God considers trampling his courts. Now you can begin to see what constitutes a great part of preparing for worship, self-examination, prayer, seeking pardon from those we may have offended, purging sin from our lives, reading and meditating on Scripture so that the Spirit and the Word can convict us of sins of ignorance. I didn't know it was a sin. Well, it was in the Bible. Why didn't you know it was a sin? In Leviticus 16, Aaron the priest had to cleanse himself before he could approach God. In Psalm 26, David cleansed his hands before he approached God's altar. 2 Timothy 2 says we must flee youthful lusts before we can pursue righteousness. You can't be pursuing God when you're chasing sin. And according to James 1, we must put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness before we can receive the Word implanted in us. Before we can receive anything from the Word preached, we must lay aside all filthiness and remaining wickedness, for we can't have any expectation that the Word will lodge on us and have any effect on us. I'm sorry, I didn't get anything out of that. I wouldn't go around telling people that. You just admitted to quite a bit. 2 Chronicles 29-5. Now, sanctify yourselves. Sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers and carry the rubbish from this holy place. That's how we sanctify ourselves. When we carry the rubbish of sin out of our lives so that we can worship God with clean hands and a pure heart. Or let me put it in reverse. You don't bring uncleanness into this place. You don't bring sin in. And if there is sin, you take it out. That can be done on a personal level or a corporate level. I often say if there were more self-discipline, there'd be less need for church discipline. You can't tolerate sin in yourself as an individual. And the elders can't tolerate sin in the membership as a corporate body. Discipline, whether it's self-discipline or church discipline, is the best way to deal with sin and carry the rubbish from this holy place. The very name for the room where people meet for worship would suggest that what I'm saying is true. It's called a sanctuary. It's different than a sanctuary city. Obviously the root of that word is the same we use for the word sanctified. It is a place set apart, a refuge from the world and from sin. Think back to your own conversion. Now this probably isn't as true today as it was years ago. But how many came to Christ in a church building? How many of you were baptized in a church building or had your children baptized in a church building? Doesn't that alone make it a special place for you? I grew up in a Baptist church where every sermon was ended with an invitation and an altar call. And we sang 291 verses of Just as I Am or the Billy Graham thing. If you came on a bus, the buses will wait. You come down here. I do have to tell this story. When I was much younger, I went and volunteered at a Billy Graham crusade in Fresno, California. And they told us that when Mr. Graham gives the invitation, you volunteers come down first. They said, that'll do two things. One, you'll be ready to counsel people. And secondly, if somebody's on the fence and not sure if they want to come down or not, they'll see all you people coming and they won't know that you worked for the Billy Graham crusade. Okay, I won't be the first one and they'll come on down. And they call that priming the pump. I don't know if you've ever worked on a farm, but we had a pump. We wanted water. We had to do it. Sometimes we had to pour water down to get water out. And that was called priming the pump. I call it manipulation. And so the first two, 300 people you see coming forward at a Billy Graham crusade all worked for Billy Graham or volunteers. And then you have these other people. I was telling your pastor about the worst case of that I've ever been a part of. It was on Father's Day in Pasadena, California at a Christian Missionary Alliance Church. That doesn't matter what brand of church it was, it happens everywhere. And the pastor had preached the typical Father's Day stand up, stand up for Jesus kind of message. And at the end we sang that song, faith of our fathers. Faith of our father's holy faith. We will be true to thee till death, which I find very interesting because the man who wrote that hymn, Frederick W. Faber converted to Romanism about a year later. He wasn't true to that faith till death. But anyway, at the end of this sermon on being a good father for Jesus, the pastor said, there were probably four, five, six hundred people there, fairly large church in Southern California. And I'm there with my college roommate and his wife and the guy gives an invitation. He says, all right, you've heard the word. All you fathers who want to stand up and be counted for Jesus, stand up now and make your declaration. What father in the world has enough guts to not stand up for that? Not me. I don't want to stand up for Jesus. Well, they all stood up, probably 150 of them. And that's spurred on the pastor. And he says, look at this. This is great. You women, look at your husbands. Why don't you stand up with your husbands and say, I'm with you, honey, we're going to live for Jesus. Stand up now. And so we kept singing, faith of our fathers, faith of our friends. All these women stood up. Well, of course, he wasn't going to let it go there. Kids, look at your parents. I'm glad we didn't have any golden retrievers in the audience. We'd have gotten to them eventually. Children, look at your parents standing up for Jesus. Let's make it a family thing. All you kids who want to identify with your godliness, stand up and they're all standing up. I'm not a father, a mother or a kid. I'm the only one seated in the auditorium. And then the pastor does this. He puts his head down. He says, Spirit of God is speaking to me. And I know there's someone out there who needs to make a stand for Jesus. I'm the only one. I mean, he couldn't have been any more obvious if he'd call me by name. And my roommate says, come on, just stand up so we can all go home. I said, I'm not given into this nonsense. So finally, after, like I said, 291 verses of faith of our fathers, he finally closed in prayer and then he went to the back. And when I walked out, I shook his hand and smiled. It looks good kill. But that's not ministry. That's manipulation. George Swenick said, suppose you were a person of great quality and estate. And the King sent you word that he wants to dine with you tomorrow. What preparation would you make? I know how it is for you ladies. You have to clean the house before you let the cleaning service in. I'm not letting anybody in this house looking like this. No, that's why they're coming. So the house won't look like it. Nope, not doing it. Wouldn't your first work be to clean your house, sweep out the dust, wash the floors, bring up your choices, hangings, lay down the richest carpets, bring out your best plates? Wouldn't you endeavor to have everything suitable with so great a prince? I tell you, the great king of all the world gives you notice in his word that on the Sabbath, he intends to feast with you. Can you do anything less than sweep out the dust of sin, wash the room of your heart clean and adorn it with the graces of the Holy Ghost? Truly, unless this is done, Christ will not think himself worth a welcome. All your pretended entertainment will not only be infinitely unworthy of, but provoking to, so jealous and glorious a prince. Now this is not a new idea. It might be new to us, but it's not new for God. Mark 1542 speaks of the preparation day, the day before the Sabbath. And that wasn't a cultural thing. The day before the Sabbath was given completely as a day to prepare for the holy duties of that sacred day. There was a man named John Wells in the 1600s who wrote a book called The Practical Sabotarian, 942 pages on how to rightly conduct yourself on the Lord's Day. He said the Jews gave very solemn honor to their Sabbath. The Jews began the Sabbath at six o'clock the night before, and the Hebrews called it the entrance to the Sabbath. Their preparation for the Sabbath began at three o'clock in the afternoon, which the Hebrews call Sabbath Eve, borrowing the phrase from the pagans whose religion taught them in their sacrifices to their gods and goddesses to prepare themselves by a strict kind of holiness. Among the Jews the whole day before the Sabbath was a day, it was a kind of preparation. They went into the synagogue the day before the Sabbath. Shall the Jew be so accurate and diligent in his preparation and the Christians so careless and loose? Does the knowledge of Christ influence us no more than this? Let us blush to be outdone by those who rejected Christ. How much is God worth? That's the question. How much is he worth to you? So third, to not prepare our hearts to worship God is a great sin. Jeremiah 7, sin and then come to God's house and say we are delivered. Job 11, do not let wickedness dwell in your tents. Now there's an important distinction there that needs to be made. He doesn't say there will never be sin. What he says is don't let it take up residence. Like the old saying goes, you can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can't keep them from building a nest in your hair. Same thing here. He's not saying you won't sin. What he's saying is don't let it live there. 2 Chronicles 12, he did evil because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord. The word translated prepare there is the same word as was used in 1 Chronicles 22, where it was translated set. According to this passage, the man did evil. What was the evil he did? Drunkenness? No. Adultery? No. Life of use? No. What possible evil did he did? He didn't prepare his heart to seek the Lord. Wow. So the sanctity of worship demands that we prepare for it. The purity of worship demands that we prepare for it. But preparing for worship does not begin Sunday morning. Turn to the book of Nehemiah. Happiness is sitting next to someone who knows how to find Nehemiah. And if you have trouble, find that other book in the Old Testament, the book of contents. I saw a couple of you turned back to find it. Beginning in chapter 13 and verse 15. Nehemiah says, In those days I saw people in Judah treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sheaves and loading donkeys with wine grapes figs and all kinds of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And I warned them about the day on which they were selling provisions. Men of Tyre dwelt there also who brought in fish and all kinds of goods and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, What evil thing is this that you do by which you profane the Sabbath day? Did not our fathers do thus and did not our God bring all this disaster on us and on this city? Yet you bring added wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath. So it was at the gates of Jerusalem as it began to be dark before the Sabbath I commanded the gates to be shut and charged that they must not be open till after the Sabbath. Then I posted some of my servants at the gates so that no burdens would be brought in on the Sabbath day. Here preparation began Saturday evening. Nehemiah shut the gates of the city Saturday evening to shut out distractions. Now how do I extrapolate that into this discussion? Well shouldn't we then shut the gates of our hearts and minds for the same reason? I mean can we really be prepared for Sunday morning worship? If Saturday nights are spent at the movies or a party or a Sunday morning is taken up with watching TV, box news even, listening to the radio or reading the Sunday paper. These distractions take away from worship. As I mentioned in Malachi 1 God was asking the people for a lamb as a sacrifice and what they did is they went out into the flock and they found a sickly or disease lamb who was going to die anyway and they'd offer God that one. God said why should I accept that? Offer that to the governor and see if he'll take it. So we give the world and the devil our youth and our strength and we give God our old age, our weariness and our disease sacrifices. We continually give God leftovers and we say to him you're not worth my best and if that's you don't ever sing that hymn give of your best to the master because you're a liar. But what do these are necessary to prepare? Let me give you just some practical ones. Spend time meditating on the majesty of God and the greatness and gravity of his worship. Meditation is a lost art. I think you have the book by Thomas Watson in your bookstore here not on the book table called the Christian on the Mount which is his treatise on meditation. When I grew up in the 60s meditation was staring at your navel. Any more I'd have to look into a mirror to find it. Secondly, cleanse your heart and mind from any known sin. James 4 equates cleansing our hands and hearts with drawing near to God. Third, put the things of the world aside and think about holy things. Fourth, be much in prayer to guard your heart. Five, go to bed early so that you're not too tired to give God your full attention in his worship. George Swenick said, prepare to meet thy God, O Christian. Take thyself to thy chamber on Saturday night. Confess and bewail thy unthankfulness for the ordinances of God. Shame and condemn thyself for thy sins. Beg God to prepare thy heart for religious performances. Spend some time in consideration of the infinite majesty, holy, and goodness of God. Ponder the weight and importance of holy duties. The oven of thy heart thus baked in Saturday night, it will be easily heated the next morning. If you leave your heart with God on Saturday night, you'll find it still with him on Sunday morning. I guess we could think of our heart as a crock pot. You put it on simmer and you leave it for 12 hours and you got a meal. Think of your heart like that. Put it on simmer with God Saturday night. Think about him. Think about Christ. Think about salvation. Read the Psalms. Meditate. Read a good Christian book, not fluff. Good Christian books. That's what it means to prepare for Sunday worship.