To begin worship with objective praise to God is one of the things which is missing so often today. Sometimes one is baffled. You watch a video of a message, or you go to a church and it's evangelical, it's believing, it’s even Reformed and Calvinistic, but sometimes you find that the one leading the service or the preacher, the pastor, doesn't even know how to pray. He doesn’t begin with the Lord. There is no objective worship. There is no focusing objectively on God and his majesty and his being and his glory. If you don't start there, according to the biblical examples, you cannot pray. You must start with a great God, you must honour him, call upon him, and bow before him in your heart. That is exactly what is happening here. In this Spirit driven revival, it begins with the recognition of the might, majesty, holiness, goodness and kindness of God. It starts with God. So often you hear the opening prayer: ‘We thank God that we are saved, and we have a Saviour, and we are helped every day’, and it's all about me. Of course we have got to give thanks for our personal blessings, but the one praying doesn’t start by thinking about God; he doesn't reach out to him, acknowledge him, glorify him, and worship him. Instead, it’s all about me. What are they teaching in the seminary which that dear brother came from? They have short-changed him; they have lost their way. Certainly there are exceptions, but it's common, and it's very sad. This passage gives us the biblical precedent for a correct way to worship.
Of course, the physical is done away with for us. In the New Testament. Christ expressly said that the Father seeks to worship him those who worship him in spirit and in truth. All the physical aspects are done away in the New Testament, and we are glad of that in a way, because while they practice some of these things like the affirming, the raising of hands, often in the Old Testament, yet at the same time they were a mixed multitude. As soon as you bring actions into worship, you give scope for hypocrisy or at the very least insincerity. People carry out the motions and their minds are somewhere else. New Testament worship is enlightened worship. We understand much more. We have the glorious light of the gospel. We have a regenerate church membership, and the physical aspects, which belong to the time of the church's infancy, are done away with. It is a great mistake when people want to go back to them, and think that they can express worship in bodily actions. They didn't think that in the Old Testament. However, here the great crowd raise their hands in affirmation, and they bow down and prostrate themselves with their foreheads touching the ground.