Ordered Worship, Enduring Life

The priestly divisions, the sayings of wisdom, the famine announced by Amos, and the race set before us all press one lesson upon the church: God is not served carelessly. He appoints the service of His house, judges false worship, weighs the tongue, and searches the heart. Therefore let no one suppose that religion consists in songs, assemblies, or a name among God's people while the life remains crooked. When feasts are full but the poor are trampled, songs become lamentation. When lips speak much but hands do evil, a famine comes—not of bread only, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

Tertullian says of those who ministered rightly, "For it was not their own work, but God's, which they executed, and that too, from His express commandment." This is a needed fear for us. We do not offer to God what pleases us, but what He has commanded: a pure tongue, just dealings, steadfast endurance, and reverent worship. Proverbs teaches that righteousness delivers from death, while crooked gain perishes; Hebrews teaches that this righteousness is not idle, but patient and disciplined, accepting the Father's chastening rather than despising it.

So the Christian must lay aside not only open sin but every weight: excess speech, dishonest trade, bitterness, neglect of prayer, hardness toward the needy. If judgment begins with the sanctuary, then let us draw near in order, repentance, and perseverance, fixing our eyes where alone the race can be finished: "Looking (he says) unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith;" There is no safe memory except the memory of the just, and no lasting feast except the one kept by those who endure.