April 23
2 Samuel 6:12; 1 Chronicles 15:1-28; 2 Samuel 6:12-16; 1 Chronicles 15:29; 2 Samuel 6:17-19; 1 Chronicles 16:1-43; 2 Samuel 6:19-23
Many miss the concept of what true worship is in church. Often when the leader of the worship group stops the instruments and it is left up to the congregation it sounds a bit more like a funeral procession rather than a worship service. When we worship it has less to do with the talent of the worship group, less to do with how good their voices are, less to do with the choices of musical selection. It should all be about how enthusiastic we are in praising, or ascribing worth to our God. Many know that our last revival was initiated by Pastor Chuck Smith in the late 1960’s. This led to the Calvary Chapel Movement. This movement brought in a large number of “hippies”, the public outcasts of the time. At that time the music industry was also beginning to change, heavily influenced by such groups as the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. These young hippies were so excited about their new found love of Jesus, they began to create songs of worship about Him. But this music was largely not accepted in the “traditional churches”. So, in 1971, Pastor Chuck Smith began Maranatha Music. This was the springboard for all the current music that we now use in church. Just like the revival, this was a time when people would excitedly sing out loud their praises using this new genre of music. Fifty years later we are in desperate need not of new messages and new songs, but of a new revival. We desperately need churches to be filled with those excitedly hungering for the Lord in their reading, in their fellowship and in their worship.
After failing miserably the first time, three months previously, when David tried to move forward in God’s will, but his way, he gets back to the word of God and assembled the Levites and now did it God’s way. As the procession moved to Jerusalem, note the attitude of the King of Israel in 2 Samuel 6:12-15, “...So David went there and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David with a great celebration...And David danced before the Lord with all his might, wearing a priestly garment. So David and all the people of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts of joy and the blowing of rams’ horns.” David’s wife was disgusted by his show of emotion to which David responded in 6:21-22, “... “I was dancing before the Lord, who chose me above your father and all his family! He appointed me as the leader of Israel, the people of the Lord, so I celebrate before the Lord. Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!...”. We get a sense of David’s enthusiasm in the song he wrote to mark this occasion in 1 Chronicles 16:8-10, “ Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exult in his holy name; rejoice, you who worship the Lord.”
Though the natural tendency is to look and search for who will initiate the next revival, the truth is we all need to do a little self-reflection. Revival starts with the individual. Have we replaced our enthusiastic following of the Lord with more of a ho-hum approach. Maybe doing less: missing church, reading less, praying less; but maybe doing everything “right”, but with much less enthusiasm. Perhaps we might be replacing some of our true worship with more of a “doing the right thing” approach. Again, at church there are many who don’t sing at all, others nearly inaudibly, and very few enthusiastically. When we read are we expecting God to blow us away with some new revelation?, because He can and will if we are willing. When praying do we go through our laundry list, in rote fashion, or do we communicate with our living and active God who always hears, as we dialogue with Him. Our hope as a nation and as a world rests not in a political solution, a scientific breakthrough, but instead in true and authentic revival. Nothing else will do.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: