With this little view of the temples, let us consider the worship which might fill them. True worship, like true know ledge of God, ever flows from the revelation, for man by wisdom knows not God. Worship, to be true, must be according to that revelation which God has made of Himself, and this I would trace a little through Scripture.
Abel was a true worshipper; his worship or offering was according to faith-i.e. according to revelation (Heb. 11). The firstlings of his flock which he offered were according to the bruised seed of the woman, and according to the coats of skins with which the Lord God had clothed his parents.
Noah, followed Abel, and also worshipped in the faith of the woman's bruised seed; he took his new inheritance only in virtue of blood (Gen. 8:20); lie was therefore a true worshipper-worshipping God as He had revealed Himself.
Gen. 12:7; here we see Abraham following in their steps, a true worshipper.
Isaac, precisely in the track of Abraham, worshipped the God who had appeared to him, not affecting to be wise, and thus becoming a fool, but in simplicity of faith and worship, like Abraham, raising his altar to the revealed God (Gen. 26:24,25).
Jacob was a true worshipper. The Lord appears to him in his sorrow and degradation, in the misery to which his own sin had reduced him, thus revealing Himself as the One in whom mercy rejoiceth against judgment, and he at once owns God as thus revealed to him, and this God of Bethel was his God to the end (Gen. 48:15,16). Here was enlarged revelation of God, and worship following such revelation, and that is true worship.
The Nation of Israel was a true worshipper; God had revealed Himself to Israel in a varied way-He had given them the law of righteousness, and also shadows of good things to come. By the one He had multiplied transgressions, and the other provided the remedy: and the worship of Israel was according to this. There was an extreme sensitiveness to sin, with burdens to allay it, which they were not able to bear, and thus the spirit of bondage and fear was gendered. Israel_ had thus become increasingly acquainted with the good and evil, and their worship was accordingly. The tabernacle or temple where all the worship went on as the established worship might still be set aside, because it was not the perfect thing, and God might show out the better if He pleased in spite of it; and so He did on various cccasions. Witness Gideon, Manoah, and David.
Gideon worshipped according to a new revelation of God in spite of Shiloh and the tabernacle; his rock became the ordered place, or the anointed altar, just because of this revelation and command of God (Judg. 6:14-26). Manoah turns what he had supposed a repast into a sacrifice, because the Lord had revealed His wish that it should be so (Judg. 13:15,19). David at the bidding of the Lord turns from the ordained or consecrated altar to another, which was in the unclean inheritance of a Gentile, where, however, as at Bethel of old, mercy had rejoiced against judgment, and where accordingly God had built Himself another house. " This is the house of the Lord. God," says David, (1 Chron. 22) Thus, then, these three instances were cases of true worship, though manifestly a departure from God's own established worship.
The healed Leper was a true worshipper, though in like manner he departed from the established, the divinely established, order, just because without a command he apprehended God in a new revelation of Himself (Luke 17:11-19). The healing had a voice in the ear of faith, for it was only the God of Israel who could heal a leper (2 Kings 5:7). This was more excellent even than the same kind of faith in Gideon, Manoah, or David.