Its idols forbidden.

is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.

Lk. 21: 34 Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

Gal. 1: 4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.

Ph. 3: 18 (Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

2 Tim. 4: 10 Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. [See 122, 625.]

742. Worldly idolatry forbidden — the contrary required.

Jer. 45: 5 Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not: for behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD.

Mat. 6: 19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Mk. 8: 36 What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? 37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Lk. 6: 24 Wo unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. 25 Wo unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. 12: 19 I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and

World overcome-God, to be worshipped in public.

be merry. 20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? 21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. 33 Sell that ye have, and give alms: provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Jn. 6: 27 Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

Rom. 12: 2 Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

Col. 3: 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

Jam. 1: 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

1 Jn. 2: 15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. [See 626.]

743. World, overcome by grace.

Gal. 6: 14 God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

1 Jn. 5: 4 Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. [See 59.]

WORSHIP OF GOD.

744. God the only proper object of religious worship.

Ex. 20: 2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Ps. 96: 4 For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens. 8 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering,

Public worship.

and come into his courts. 9 O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.

Mat. 4: 10 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. [See 80, 280, 295.]

745. Public worship of God required, encouraged, and exemplified.

Ps. 40: 7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. 10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

Mat. 18: 20 Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Ac. 11: 25 Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: 26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. 13: 14 When they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and sat down. 15 And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. 16 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.

Heb. 10: 25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. [Neh. 8: 1-7, Ac. 13: 42-45.]

746. Public worship with religious instruction exemplified.

Neh. 8:8 They read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.

Mk. 2:1 Again he entered into Capernaum, after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. 2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them.

Lk. 4: 43 He said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for therefore am I sent. 44 And

he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.

Public worship-False Zeal exemplified.

Jn. 8: 1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives: 2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down and taught them. 18: 20 Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.

Ac. 18: 4 He [Paul] reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. 5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews, that Jesus was Christ. [See 430.]

747. Public worship with social prayer, praise and reverence.

Lev. 18: 30 Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

1 K. 8: 22 Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven.

Ps. 89: 7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

Mat. 26: 30 When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.

Heb. 12:28 Receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; 29 For our God is a consuming fire. [See 528-9.]

ZEAL.

748. False Zeal exemplified.

1 K. 18: 28 They cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.

Mat. 23:15 Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves.

Ac. 22: 3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.

True Zeal exemplified and required

-necessary, to overcome.

Rom. 10: 2 I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

Gal. 1: 13 Ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it; 14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. 4: 17 They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.

749. True Zeal exemplified and required.

Num. 25: 11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel (while he was zealous for my sake among them) that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. 12 Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: 13 And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.

Ps. 119: 139 My zeal hath consumed me; because mine enemies have forgotten thy words.

2 Cor 7: 11 Behold this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of ourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge!

Gal. 4: 18 It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you.

Col. 4: 12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. 13 For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal for you, and them that are in Laodicea, and them in Hierapolis.

Tit. 2: 14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. [See 1.]

750. Zeal necessary, to overcome "the world, the flesh and the devil,” and obtain the heavenly inheritance.

Lk. 13: 24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

I

1 Cor. 9: 26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: 27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means