Now I believe that most of you,
if not all of you, are aware that the subject announced for
the ministry of this evening hour is our vision for these
days. In October of 1988, this was
the subject announced for the Monday evening session in that
particular pastor's conference. And since then, five additional
installments on that theme have been preached on the Monday night
of the conference. One of the years we had visiting
speakers for both of those evenings, and so the series was temporarily
interrupted. And each time I have begun by
making several basic assertions. a word of explanation and then
a word of disclaimer. And since we do have a number
of new men in the conference and perhaps people visiting with
us who have not been present for the previous installments
of this series entitled Our Vision for These Days, let me repeat
that word of explanation and that word of disclaimer. By the terms, our vision for
these days, we are merely seeking to express what is our perception
of some of the most critical areas of need for the people
of God in the day in which we live and in the context in which
these men present at the conference are called upon to carry out
a ministry marked by biblical integrity. We are seeking in
a real sense to apply the principles embodied in a text such as 1
Chronicles 12, 32 where the sacred writer tells us concerning the
men of Issachar that they had understanding of the times that
Israel might know what she ought to do. Or a text such as Ephesians
5 in which we are told to be not unwise, but understanding
what the will of the Lord is. And so none of us has had an
angelic visitation and a vision in the strict sense of the term,
but we use it in the looser sense of our perception with reference
to the crucial issues that need to be addressed in our generation. And then by way of a word of
disclaimer, we claim no extraordinary commission with respect to our
vision for these days, nor do we claim an exclusive commission. In other words, these are matters
that we trust are the concern of all who seek with spiritual
discernment to give themselves to a ministry that answers to
the needs of our day. And we are thankful to God for
the increasing number of men and churches of which we become
aware, where these concerns that we share and seek to convey are
the burning concerns of their ministries as well. In the previous
messages I've sought to articulate our vision for these days in
terms of a recovery of the biblical gospel, a renewal of biblical
holiness, a return to biblical churchmanship, a restoration
of biblical preaching, a recognition of the watchman identity and
function of the pastoral office, and then last October a return
to domestic piety or the reestablishment of godly family life. Now these
messages are all available on tape as a ministry of the church
and available in the Trinity bookstore and perhaps some of
you may wish to obtain them and prayerfully consider these major
areas of concern. Now tonight our subject is our
vision for these days, a recovery of biblical worship. our vision for these days in
terms of a passionate concern to see a recovery of biblical
worship. Now in taking up so vast and
crucial a subject as biblical worship, I am doing so with a
very limited field of focus, namely the public worship of
the gathered people of God in their seasons of stated gathering
for such worship. I state this fact at the outset
because I am fully aware that the biblical doctrine of worship
is both exceeding broad and deep. and in bypassing many other crucial
aspects of the more comprehensive biblical doctrine of worship,
I have no intention in so doing of demeaning those other aspects,
nor do I consider them matters of little importance or unworthy
of extensive and careful instruction from the Scriptures. However,
I do believe it is accurate to state that nothing will be more
influential in shaping the other facets of our worship than our
understanding and experience of our public social worship. Therefore, regarding it as the
lynchpin or the primary molding influence upon all other facets
of worship, it is this aspect that is the peculiar and almost
exclusive focus of the ministry this evening. Now as we attempt
to think our way through this vital and vast subject of the
recovery of biblical worship, I want you to consider with me
first of all, and this heading will be disproportionately longer
than the subsequent headings, and I state that lest some of
you get antsy knowing that several more are to come, we consider
first of all The manifestation of God's concern for the nature
and purity of His worship. The manifestation of God's concern
for the nature and purity of His worship. It is my purpose
under this heading to guide you in a quick overview of some pivotal
passages in the Old and the New Testaments which clearly manifest
God's great concern for the nature and purity of His worship. we might go further and say God's
great jealous concern for the nature and purity of his worship. In his well-known work on the
biblical doctrine of the church, James Bannerman writes as follows
in the opening section in which he is dealing with the public
worship of God, these very perceptive words. The sinner has no right
to dictate, but must submissively learn from God both the conditions
and the manner in which God will permit his approach for the purpose
even of worshiping Him. The path of approach to God was
shut and barred in consequence of man's sin. It was impossible
for man himself to renew the communion which had been so solemnly
closed by the judicial sentence which excluded him from the presence
and favor of his God. Could that path ever again be
opened up and the communion of God with man and of man with
God ever again be renewed? This was a question for God alone
to determine. If it could, on what terms was
the renewal of communion to take place? And in what manner was
the fellowship of the creature with his creator again to be
maintained? This too was a question, no less
than the former, for God alone to resolve. The sinner could
not, from the very nature of the case, presume to dictate
to God either the conditions on which his communion with God
ought to be once more allowed, or the manner in which it might
rightly and properly be continued. These were questions which could
only be determined by a regard to the principles of God's moral
government and which none but God was competent to decide. Public worship is no other than
the manner and the way in which sinners associated together in
a church fellowship are permitted in their collective capacity
to hold communion with God, to maintain in a right and befitting
way their fellowship with Him and to approach Him day by day
in acceptable communion. The manner of such communion,
as well as the conditions on which it was possible to renew
it at all, is a matter in regard to which it was the province
of God and not of man to dictate. Would God that those words were
understood and taken seriously by the professing Christian church
in our generation. And I want to demonstrate by
this brief overview of several passages in the Old and the New
Testaments what I am calling the manifestation of God's concern
for the nature and purity of His worship. We begin in the
first recorded act of social or public worship in Genesis
chapter 4, verse 1. Genesis chapter 4, And the man
knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have
gotten the man with the help of the Lord. And again she bore
his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain
was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and
his offering he had not respect. And in the language of Paul Harvey
you know the rest of the story. Now it's very interesting that
in this passage we see first of all public social worship
in the form of offerings to God simply appearing in the narrative. There is no hint whatsoever in
any of the previous material given to us in the book of Genesis
as to how or in what manner God made known to Adam and Eve and
to these two sons that He would be worshipped in conjunction
with the offering of substance from the field either the animal
or the vegetable kingdom unto the living God. It simply appears. But what is very obvious is that
though we are given no information as to how it had its first appearance,
God is deeply engaged in considering both the person and his offering
in these acts of public worship, for we read, as they brought
their offerings, verse 4b, the Lord had respect unto Abel and
his offering. God was engaged in beholding
this act of public worship. this visible expression of approaching
unto God. And with respect to the one it
is said, God had respect to the person and to the offering that
was presented. The Lord had respect unto Abel,
his person, and to his offering, but unto Cain and his offering
He had not respect. God did not simply glance over
his shoulder and say, well, the older one has brought an offering,
and the kid brother has come with his offering, and he brought
something, he brought it in some way, so all is well. No, he had
respect to the one and his offering, and to the other he had not respect,
nor to his offering. And the result is that God rejects
the one man's person and his offering while accepting the
other. And the subsequent narrative
tells us that the first violent division in the human race resulting
in murder was precipitated by the differing attitudes and actions
connected with the worship of God. Now I'm aware of the New
Testament commentary upon this event. One was a man of faith. One is called a righteous man. But it's interesting that in
the context of the revelation of the faith and the righteousness
of the one, and the unbelief and the wickedness of the other,
the focal point is upon an act of public worship. Surely God
is telling us from this first recorded instance of public or
social visible worship that he has a deep concern for the nature
and the purity of his worship. Then we turn to the book of Leviticus,
to that incident with relationship to Nadab and Abihu, the two sons
of Aaron, God's appointed high priest. Leviticus chapter 10
verses 1 through 3. Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1
through 3. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons
of Aaron, took each of them his censer, and put fire thereon,
and laid incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the
Lord, which he had not commanded them. And there came forth fire
from before the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the
Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This
is it that the Lord spoke, saying, I will be sanctified in them
that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified."
Now according to chapter 9 in verse 24, After there had been
this formal setting apart of the place that was to be the
central gathering for social worship, And there was the offering
up of the offerings appointed by God. We read that there came
forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the
burnt offering and the fat, and when all the people saw it, they
shouted and fell on their faces. And in a marvelous work on gospel
worship by Jeremiah Burroughs, Mr. Burroughs points out that
there is no indication that God had given any explicit command
that only the fire that he had sent should be the fire by which
the offerings were to be consumed. There is no record, but the record
tells us that when they offered what is called strange fire,
that is, fire that in some way was unauthorized, God showed
once more God manifested again His great concern for the nature
and the purity of His worship by striking the two sons of Aaron
dead. And the rationale for that act
is given in the words of Moses in verse 3, this is it that the
Lord spoke, saying, I will be sanctified, I will be set apart
and duly regarded for who and what I am in them that come nigh
me, that is, my priests, and before all the people I will
be glorified. and God was concerned to preserve
the sanctity of the activity of the priests and the glory
of His own name by making it abundantly clear that He was
deeply concerned for the nature and the purity of His worship,
even the source of the fire that would consume the sacrifices
upon His altar. The third passage, or large segment
of the portion of the Word of God that gives us the manifestation
of God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship, are
those large sections in Exodus and in the book of Leviticus,
the whole Levitical system. When we pick up these chapters,
we find chapter after chapter, paragraph after paragraph, dealing
with the specific details of the preparation of this sacrifice
and the other sacrifice, this offering and another offering.
the preparation of the priest, his purification, the garments
he was to wear, the activities he was to engage in, whether
it was in the ordinary course of priestly activity in the outer
segment of the tabernacle. or whether the details of the
activity of the high priest once a year when he entered the inner
sanctuary, and that never without blood, when we read these things
chapter after chapter, paragraph after paragraph, surely God is
saying in language that cannot be misunderstood, I am deeply
concerned for the nature and the purity of my worship. Yes, I know that many of these
things are rooted in his jealous concern that the contours that
are being brought backward upon the Levitical system from the
substantial realities in Christ of which these were the shadows. I know that God's jealousy is
in conjunction with Christ and the once-for-all sacrifice that
He would make for sin and for the activities of Christ as our
great High Priest. And I am not in any way negating
that dimension of the great and meticulous concern that is shown
in the whole Levitical system, but surely God is also saying
to His people, approaching me is serious business. You don't
have little caucuses in your tents in the tribe of Levi or
in the tribe of Judah and decide what you would like this month
for a little novelty in my worship and come with your consensus
into my courts. No, God had clearly prescribed
all the details of how he would be reproached by his people in
the place of disappointment. Then there is a fourth line of
evidence for the manifestation of God's concern for the nature
and purity of his worship, namely the strictures of the second
commandment. The strictures of the second
commandment in Exodus chapter 20. In Exodus chapter 20, the
familiar words of the Decalogue, God calling his people to himself
amidst unusual and arresting circumstances, speaks with his
own voice and then writes with his own finger this summary of
moral duty and obligation. And no sooner does he announce
in the first commandment, Exodus 23, that he and he alone will
be the object of worship and religious devotion. Thou shalt
have no other gods before me or besides me. Then he says,
and in having me as your God, you shall worship me only in
the ways of my appointment. You shall not make unto you a
graven image. nor any likeness of anything
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or in
the water under the earth. You shall not bow down yourself
unto them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am
a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children,
upon the third and the fourth generation of them that hate
me. and showing loving kindness unto thousands of them that love
me and keep my commandments. Surely the place of this scripture
with regard to God's worship that men were not free to worship
even the true God under the impulse of their own imaginations. as
we saw them so quickly doing when they bow down before the
golden calf and yet dare to say that that calf represents the
God that brought them out of Egypt. God says, no, I am exceedingly
jealous for the nature and the purity of my worship. Then we add in the fifth place
the witness of the prophets. As we saw in the ministry of
the Word Sunday morning in the adult class from Isaiah 1, God
is deeply concerned about the nature and the purity of His
worship. And that theme that we contemplated
Lord's Day morning throbs through the prophetic denunciations and
calls to repentance And while the prophets announce the better
days of the new covenant, remember how often those better days are
described in terms of the cultic worship of the Old Testament
coming to an expanded dimension and to levels of purity never
known before. Worship now in which the eunuch
would be welcomed into God's courts. Surely God is saying
throughout the witness of the prophets that He is deeply concerned
for the nature and the purity of His worship. But is this the
emphasis only of the Old Testament? Or do we find it spilling over
and flowering in the New? Well, I ask you to turn with
me to John's Gospel, the second chapter, As we take this quick
overview of these key passages that I am saying are the manifestation
of God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship. And
in John 2 we have the familiar account so often and rightly
so that it should be so read at weddings. And the Lord Jesus,
who was no social killjoy, No first century Scrooge who when
he saw people making their way up to a wedding feast with its
week-long festivities said, Bah! Humbug upon feasting and upon
holy merriment. No. We have the accounts of the
Lord Jesus performing His first public miracle there in Cana
of Galilee by turning water into wine, gladdening the hearts of
all who were present, leaving to their own Responsibility before
God if they abused His good gift of wine and He left the responsibility
at their feet, should they have done so. What a picture of our
gracious Lord performing a miracle that had to do with people's
appetites and enjoyments, not for that which was a necessity
for their existence, but for their joy. and adding to their
holy and sanctified merriment. Any thought that Christ is in
any way a social killjoy who would restrict expressions of
holy merriment And of sanctified feasting is foreign to the picture
given to us by John. And remember, he says, although
the things that he did, it would take the whole world to fill
the books, but this selection of these specific things, these
are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Son of God,
and that believing you might have life through His name. And
that first recorded miracle is that in which we see this side,
this dimension of our Lord Jesus. But it's also interesting that
the last half of the chapter, beginning with verse 13, contains
the account of his cleansing of the temple. And at the Passover
of the Jews was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he
found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves,
and the changers of money sitting. And he made a scourge of cords
and cast out of the temple both the sheep and the oxen. And he
poured out the changers' money and overthrew their tables. And to them that sold the doves
he said, Take these things hence. Make not my father's house a
house of merchandise. And His disciples remembered
that it was written, zeal for thy house shall eat me up. No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the
bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him. He has exegeted Him. And as our Lord is exegeting
the heart of the Father, He exegetes Him as the God who is celebrated
in Psalm 104, who has a delight and a concern over all of His
creatures and all of His works, a beneficent, large-hearted God
who is not at all averse to holy merriment. But he is also revealed
in this very chapter as the God who has a burning jealousy for
the nature and the purity of his worship. And there in that
place, the temple, the very seat and center of the social public
worship of Jehovah, That place in which the appointed priesthood
functioned, that place in which the mandated and warranted sacrifices
were offered, when our Lord Jesus sees that the worship is being
prostituted by commercialism, what does He do? So often we've
become insensitive to the vigor of the language. When he saw
what he saw, he made a whip of cords, and look at the vigorous
language, cast out, poured out, overthrew and said. What he did on the front end
of his ministry, he did on the tail end of his ministry as well
in that passion week. when he came and cleansed the
temple again and the language of the synoptic writers is even
more vigorous where it says, and he drove them out. Get the
picture. The beneficent Christ standing
off in a corner at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, receiving
the supply of wine is dwindling. His mother trying to precipitate
something, my time is not yet come. And at the appointed hour,
he makes known his will to the servants, and the water pots
are filled. They are turned into wine, and
one can only imagine the Lord Jesus smiling as he overhears
people whispering and nudging one another, saying, I don't
know what's happened at this feast, but they've saved the
best wine till now. They usually start bringing out
the cheaper stuff when our taste buds are not as alert and fresh
and we've eaten and drunk to the full. Can you imagine the
beneficent Son of God standing off in the side with a smile
playing off the corners of His mouth, delighting in the delight
of the wholesome, sinless merriment at a wedding feast? Oh, you say,
that's my That's the Jesus with whom I feel so comfortable. The gentle, beneficent, kind
Jesus. Now look at the picture at the
end of the chapter. You're a visitor in Jerusalem. You know nothing
of what is going on in those days. But as a visiting tourist
you want to see this magnificent temple and have some sense of
what goes on and you happen to be there this very day when this
man enters the temple and you see someone with burning eyes
and I believe with rippling flesh hardened there in the carpenter
shop over thirty years, and he has a scourge of cords in his
hands, and he goes from one group of animals to another, and he
whacks them upon the rump, and the hind legs go up, and the
animals snort, and they scurry, hither and yon. And he tucks
his scourge under his arm, and he finds the tables filled with
various coinage that is exchanged for offerings to be purchased.
And he turns them over, and the coins clank upon the stone floor
of the temple. You'd say, a madman has been
let loose in this place. the Jesus of the Bible, whose
reflecting the heart of his Father, which is exceedingly jealous
for the nature and the purity of his worship, zeal for thy
house shall eat me up. Is God concerned under the new
covenant with the purity of his worship? Our Lord Jesus, on the
threshold and at the conclusion of His public ministry, answers
the question by His holy violence in cleansing the temple. And then in that marvelous passage
in John chapter 4, in which our Lord is evangelizing
an immoral woman, and in the course of evangelizing her, the
subject of public worship comes up and the proper place for that
public worship enters the discussion you know the story and in the
course of his interaction with her the woman says to our Lord
in verse 20 John 4 our fathers worshipped in this mountain In
this mountain is where we Samaritans carry on our stated public worship
of God. And you say, that is you Jesus,
that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship, where
the stated social worship of God should be carried on at the
temple in Jerusalem. Jesus said unto her woman, believe
me, The hour comes when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem
shall stated public worship of any kind be a matter of concern. No, that is not what he says.
He says, when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall
ye worship the Father, you worship that which you know not. We worship
that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour
comes and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the
Father in spirit and truth. For such does the Father seek
to be his worshipers. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him. The little particle of necessity,
they, they must worship him in spirit and truth. What did he mean when he said
that his worship would be in the realm of spirit and of truth? I have found the comments of
Lenski most helpful in giving what to me is the most accurate
distillation of the meaning of our Lord's words. He writes,
moreover, if a genuine contact is to be made with the Father,
If the genuine object of the worship is to be reached, does
this not mean that these two, the worshiper's own spirit and
God's own revealed truth, joined together, must form the sphere,
the preposition n is used, with spirit and truth joined by the
coordinating conjunction chi, Is it not in this sphere in which
the worship takes place, all that forsakes this sphere is
spurious worship? Omit the spirit, and though you
have the truth, the worship becomes formalism, mere ritual observance. Omit the truth, and though the
whole soul is thrown into the worship, it becomes an abomination. Thus spirit and truth form a
unit, two halves that belong together in every act of worship. And among the many things we
learn from these words of our Lord Jesus, so pregnant with
meaning, is that under the economy which he came to establish that
would result in the utter, total, irreversible dismantling of the
whole Levitical system and all of the significance of Jerusalem
and its temple, central to all that he would effect by being
the mediator of the New Covenant was this radical effect in the
area of worship. But that our Lord is still speaking
of worship in the context of the social, corporate worship
of His people, there is no indication that He has moved into another
realm. That was the issue that precipitated
the discussion. And now he says, under the new
economy, the Father is on a quest for worshipers. And He is on
a quest for worshipers whose worship of Him will be found
within the parameters of the human spirit, quickened by the
Holy Spirit, the engagement of the whole worshiper, and all
of that in terms of the impact and impress of truth upon the
mind and the heart of the worshipper, so that his worship is neither
formalism on the one hand, nor will worship on the other. So God manifests again He manifests
again his great concern for the nature and the purity of his
worship in the new covenant. And the final witness I set before
you is Philippians 3 and verse 3. The Philippian church was
apparently threatened by the presence of Judaizers who, though
unlike the situation at Galatia, had not exerted any extensive
influence. They were like wolves prowling
about the flock. And Paul, as a faithful watchman,
warns the congregation, Philippians 3, 2, Beware not of the dogs. In the original, there's an abruptness. Beware the dogs! Beware the knife-wielders! For we are the circumcision,
we are the true people of God, marked by that supernatural work
that makes us His own true covenant people, who worship by the Spirit
of God or who worship God by the Spirit. There is a debate
as to the proper rendering, but you come out with the same thing. The true circumcision are identified,
first of all, as worshipers. They worship by the Spirit, they
glory in Christ Jesus, and they have no confidence in the flesh. Well, I trust that the overview
of these eight texts, eight representative texts, or whole blocks of biblical
witness in the case of my allusion to the emphasis of the prophets
and the entire Levitical system as it is set forth particularly
in parts of Exodus and the book of Leviticus. I trust you hear
them joining in one great and united proclamation. God is concerned for the nature
and the purity of His worship. Having established this foundational
premise, consider with me in the second place, and more briefly,
from God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship, consider
with me, secondly, the revelation of God's will for the content
and spirit of His worship. We have seen the manifestation
of his concern. Now is there a revelation of
his will for the content and spirit of his worship? And I'd
like to address this, and I can only do it suggestively, and
leave to you preachers to work out the fuller, amplified version
of each of these headings. Three simple headings. Its major
boundaries, its specific elements, and its dominant disposition.
God has revealed in his word that with respect to the content
and spirit of his worship, there are major boundaries, specific
elements, and a dominant disposition that is to mark his worship.
What are its major boundaries? Well, we've already considered
them in the pivotal text, John 4 in verse 24. The Father is
to be worshipped in spirit, in the realm of spirit and of truth. He is to be worshipped not mechanically,
not routinely, but He is to be worshipped with the engagement
of the entire being of the redeemed sinner who is involved in His
worship. We often say, with reference
to one another's activities, ah, he's doing it, but his heart
is not in it. His spirit is not in it. His
body is making motions. But it's obvious that there is
an externalism. There's not an engagement of
the whole man. And I am convinced, along with
a host of commentators, that this reference to spirit is not
a direct reference to the Holy Spirit, but to the human spirit.
God will be worshipped in the realm of spirit. He is spirit. He is not a God who can be manipulated
and moved mechanically because he has no physical parts or being. Therefore, if we are to come
into the realm of true engagement and approach to and with this
God, it must be in terms of the human spirit that engages him. Now granted no human spirit will
while it is dead in trespasses and sins, while that spirit is
characterized by an aversion to God in the carnal mind that
is enmity against Him. No, there must be the regenerating
work of God the Holy Spirit and the present energizing ministry
of the Spirit upon the human spirit But in the major boundaries
of God's revelation of His will for the content and spirit of
His worship, it is to be worship in spirit. It is not to be form
without life, but it is to be in the realm of truth. It is
not to be life without boundaries of God's revealed will. And it
would seem that the history of the church in many ways is the
tragic account of worship which at times is all spirit, ignorant
of and indifferent to the truth, or all truth, ignorant of and
indifferent to the necessity of the engagement of the human
spirit. And in our day of subjectivism,
a generation reared on the tyranny of its feelings, our practical
danger is to think that there is some height of God-honoring
worship to be attained in spirit while there is indifference to
truth. But the Father has established
the boundaries of His worship. He will be worshipped truly in
spirit and in truth. And this will involve, as you
see in the two specimen passages that contain a veritable minefield
of helpful materials. And I mean a field of gems, not
explosive mines. 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, where
two chapters are given over, or the half of one and the whole
of another, to elements pertaining to the public gatherings of the
church at Corinth. And with reference to the Supper
of Remembrance, Paul says, because you are not coming to this act
of social worship, sober in your mind. Some of you are coming
drunk. Some of you are coming so sated
and bloated with gluttony that you are not even celebrating
the Lord's Supper. It is not possible for you to
be remembering the Lord's Supper. You are not discerning His body. You see, Unless there is an enlightened
and an engaged mind in the most sacred institutions connected
with the social public worship of God, they are negated by the
absence of an enlightened and an engaged mind. That's the emphasis
of chapter 14. When they came together, they
were having their charismatic orgies. And the prophets all
saying, thus saith the Lord. And the tongue speakers speaking
out their revelation. Paul said, a man who doesn't
know what's going on comes in and he says, I've walked into
a madhouse. Isn't that what he said? The
unbeliever, uninstructed, come amongst you the way things are
now. He'll say, you're all mad! Don't you understand, he says? That if the worship of God and
in that context the exercise of those gifts that were conferred
are to accomplish their God-intended end, what must be joined? Look at the echoes of John 4
in 1 Corinthians 14 verses 14 and 15. For if I pray in a tongue, my
spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. That is, it bears
no fruit in others, because my message, my revelation is untranslated. How can it be fruitful if untranslated? What is it then? I will pray
with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the Spirit,
and I will sing with the understanding also. Else, if you bless with
the Spirit, how shall he who fills the place of the unlearned
say the Amen at the giving of your thanks, seeing he does not
know what you are saying? The great principle is, you see,
that the boundaries of God's worship, spirit and truth, there
must be engaged, enlightened minds. There must be sanctified
understanding. And there must be as well holy
decorum and order. in giving directions as to what
sex should exercise gifts of public ministry in this very
chapter and saying your women are to be silent in that setting
and in giving a specific directive about how many prophets may speak
and in what manner how many tongue speakers may speak in their languages
if interpreters are present and all of the rest notice what he
says at the end of this chapter but let all things be done decently
with holy decorum and in order Now, you see, many in our day
would say, ha, there's Paul, one of those dead old people
that knows nothing of the fire of the Holy Ghost. He knows nothing
of being abandoned in the Spirit. He comes along and says, now
the prophet should know his feet. One now and the other better
listen and do. And when three have spoken and the fourth stand,
you all stuck your fingers in your ears. Let it be by the most
free, and if a fourth stands, I don't care if he's trembling
under his athletics and saying, thus saith the Lord. Stuff your ears and tell him
to shut up and sit down. He's out of order. Someone says,
oh, the Holy Ghost told me we make an exception. He said, if
any man thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him
acknowledge the things that I say unto you are the commandments
of the Lord. Dear people, bypassing the moot question, what precisely
was the prophecy? What precisely were the tongues?
Do you see the principles? The principles are that God's
public worship is not to be mindless babbling. It is not to be mindless,
orderless, unstructured effusions of spiritual light and insight
and energy. There must be engaged in lightened
minds. There must be engaged in warm
hearts. There must be sanctified decorum
and order. Those are the major boundaries
of the revelation of God's will for the content and spirit of
His worship. But what about its specific elements? What are the elements? We read
from Bannerman, is he right? that it's up for God and God
alone to say whether He'll allow man into His presence to worship
Him, and if so, by what means that worship will be expressed
to be acceptable to God. Well, to me, the most pivotal
text with reference to the specific elements of New Covenant worship
is 1 Peter 2 and verse 5. After exhorting the believers
to put away all wickedness and guile and hypocrisy, and with
the yearning and longing of an infant for its mother's breast,
to long for the spiritual milk that is without guile, that they
may grow unto salvation. He describes this new covenant
community in verse 5 as follows, 1 Peter 2 verse 5, You also,
as living stones, are built up a spiritual house to be a holy
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ. This is one of the most densely
packed statements on worship in all of the New Testament.
I can only point to the major contours of the text. God's people,
as living stones made such by their contact with Christ the
chief cornerstone, are, from one perspective, being built
up into a spiritual house. They are the naos of God, though
the word naos is not used here. It is the word used by Paul in
Corinthians. What do you not know that you,
Corinthians, are a temple of the living God and that the Spirit
of God dwells among you or in you? Peter says we have become,
by incorporation into Christ, part of this spiritual house,
but something more. If you have a temple, what is
a temple without a priesthood to serve? Well, you've not only
become the living stones to constitute the temple, you've become the
holy priesthood to function in that temple. But what is a priest
without offerings and sacrifices? Well, you as the new covenant
priesthood, who are this spiritual house, this holy priesthood,
you are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through the mediation of the Lord Jesus, your great and glorious
High Priest, by whom your worship is offered unto God. And what
are those spiritual sacrifices? Well, if we search the Scriptures,
God has not left us without an answer. The first and foundational
spiritual sacrifice under the New Covenant is the posture of
repeated offering up of our entire redeemed humanity to God as an
expression of gratitude for His mercy to us in Christ. Romans
12 verse 1, I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God to present
your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which
is your rational or spiritual or reasonable service, and in
new covenant worship, and would to God that the reality of this
would grip us. Every time we gather as His ecclesia,
His called-out ones, to constitute afresh the visible expression
of the living temple, The gathered priesthood, our foundational
sacrifice, is the presentation of ourselves unto God as an expression
of gratitude for His saving mercies in the Lord Jesus. the offering
up afresh again and again. Some try to make a big deal and
teach a second work of grace because the aorist tense is used
with respect to presenting your body, and that's where a little
Greek can often mean bad theology. He is using the aorist in the
sense in which it is often used to speak of a prevailing overall
disposition or attitude And so he says, for you in whose hearts
the mercies of God in Christ, all the mercies marvelously expounded
in those first eleven chapters of Romans to guilty, hell-deserving,
Adamic sinners, Those mercies kept fresh in the heart by meditation
and prayer and reflection and by biblical preaching and teaching
and all the other means should find us gathering in the day
of God's appointment, in the place of His appointment, with
His people, presenting ourselves in the entirety of a redeemed
humanity, a humanity which body and soul ought to be cast into
hell, but is now found part of a living temple, part of a holy
priesthood washed in the blood of Christ, set apart unto God
in union with Christ, privileged to offer up something that is
actually acceptable to God. Think of it. This acceptable
to God? Yes, acceptable to God through
Jesus Christ. Then added to that, there is
to be the fervent offering of our praise, Hebrews 13, 15. By
Him, therefore, let us offer unto God continually the sacrifice
of praise, the fruit of lips which make confession to His
name. Through Him, through this same
Christ, by whose mediation the offering of our persons is accepted,
now we are to offer a sacrifice of praise. We are to engage mind
and heart and viscera and lungs and larynx and offer unto God
not the lame sacrifice of half-hearted, half-lunged, half-larynx praise. It stinks when you offer to God
such lame sacrifices. I can't stand it. To see people
who hide behind, well my temperament is not exuberant. I see those
people when they're out on the sidelines cheering their kids
at the soccer game of Trinity Christian School and they're
all exuberance. Those same people get engaged
in discussing a matter of business and they're all exuberance. and
come into the house of God in this part of the new covenant
priesthood, throw at God's feet the lame and the mangy sacrifice
of half-lunged, half-larynx, half-mind-engaged praise. God had very precise requirements
for the sacrifices that he would accept. If that was true under
a system of type and shadows, how much more is it so under
the glorious fulfillment in the new covenant? The sacrifice of
praise offered by whom? Not by a man-appointed priesthood
called the choir that offers it on our behalf. I don't want
somebody to take away my priestly rights. They were bought too
dearly. They were bought by the blood
of my great high priest. I might be part of the priesthood
that offers the sacrifice of praise unto God. I've had some
wonderful occasions when people have visited this place and wanted
a little tour, and I happen to be in the building for one reason
or another. And as I've taken them around and come in here,
They'd come up, I'd show them the baptistry. We're very modest
about it because we often have our Presbyterian friends and
we don't like to rub things under people's noses, but there is
a baptistry back there. And this pulpit gets moved and
that bench is not screwed down and that gets moved and the artificial
greenery gets moved. But then they'll say, but Pastor
Martin, where is the choir loft? I said, it's out there. It's
up there. And I said it gathers every Lord's
Day and blends its voice in raising praise to our God. Now don't
anyone go out and say, Pastor Martin castigated choirs, didn't
he? I didn't castigate choirs. I just explained to you what
we regard from the scriptures to be God's choir. His new covenant
priesthood. And when we ask the question,
God, if you revealed your will for the content and spirit of
your worship, He says, yes, I have. It's made your boundaries, spirit
and truth, an enlightened and engaged mind, sanctified decorum
and order. And in its specific elements,
the offering up of ourselves, the offering up of our praise,
the frequent acknowledgment of sin and guilt with renewed repentance,
the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart. A broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. And dear
people, that's why our view of what happens when whoever is
leading in the worship is so critical. He's not up there performing. He's not engaging in proxy worship. He is our mouthpiece at the throne
of grace. And therefore when he says, Oh
God, we acknowledge our coldness of heart. We acknowledge our
tendency so quickly to go a whoring after other gods. Oh Lord, we
acknowledge with shame our proneness to evil. What is happening in
that new covenant priesthood? A sacrifice of a broken and a
contrite heart is being offered up to God and it is not despised. And then the giving of our substance,
Philippians 4.18, Paul says, I've received the things that
came from the hand of Epaphroditus. And how does he describe them?
In Old Testament ritual language, he said, these things are an
odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice. Well, pleasing to God, he wanted
those Philippian Christians to see the sacred nature of their
gifts for the spread of the gospel in the cultic language of Old
Testament worship. Those are the elements that God
has required at our hand, and it's our privilege to bring Him
in what is to be its dominant disposition. Its dominant disposition,
and I've wrestled with this, it's not comprehensive, but I
hope it will at least stick And the passages on which I rest
it, I trust you'll meditate upon them. The dominant disposition
with respect to God's will for the content and spirit of His
worship in the new covenant is to be solemn joy or exuberant
solemnity. You say those are two oxymorons.
Solemn joy? Exuberant! Solemnity? No, it's not an oxymoron. It's
an attempt to express what we find in a number of passages. Let me give you two specimen
passages quickly. Psalm 2, a psalm that celebrates
Messiah's reign, the accomplishment of redemptive purposes extended
to the Goyim, breaking out of the bounds of Israel, the nations
given to him for his inheritance. And in the light of God's commitment
and covenant engagements with His own Son, celebrated in the
first three stanzas of this psalm, a word of exhortation comes in
verse 10. In the light of these realities,
now therefore, be wise, O ye kings. You great ones of the
earth, pay attention. Be wise. O ye kings, be instructed,
you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice
with trembling. Rejoice with trembling. There is joyful solemnity. There is solemn joy. exuberant solemnity, solemn joy,
rejoice, but not with a giddiness that carries over into the realm
of mindless psychological manipulation as so often marks the so-called
worship of large segments of modern charismatic nonsense. I have been in the meetings where
the slick manipulator began his oozy smooth talk. Isn't Jesus wonderful? Do you
think he's wonderful? Just give the Lord a hand. Isn't
Jesus precious? Let's just begin to thank him.
Thank you, Jesus. I dare not go on anymore for
fear I may be guilty of blasphemy. I've been there! And I've seen
the manipulation into a mindless, structureless, truth-divorced
exuberance in which everyone was raising his hands and swaying
and praying to Jesus for what? No grand and glorious truth had
been expounded. No facet of the glorious character
of our great God had been opened up and set forth with authority
and power. No great provision of new covenant
blessing purchased by the blood of Christ. Justification, adoption,
reconciliation, sanctification, glorification. None of these
things had been expounded in a responsible handling of the
word of God until the hearts of men inflamed with truth broke
out into raised hands and exuberant praise. No, it was all manipulated,
mindless, having a high without a hangover, and without having
to pay your supplier. No, it is to be solemn, truth
precipitated, truth-bounded, truth-disciplined joy. It is to be exuberant solemnity. The second passage is Hebrews
chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. As we consider the revelation
of God's will for the content and spirit of His worship, what
is to be its dominant disposition. Hebrews 12 is a marvelous passage
in many ways. It contrasts that to which we
come under the new covenant with that to which God's people came
under the old. And as a conclusion, we read
in verse 28, Wherefore, in the light of these things, receiving
a kingdom that cannot be shaken, Let us have grace whereby we
may offer service. Some of you may have a Bible
that says whereby we may worship. Others may say whereby we may
serve. Why? Because the Greek verb Lot
rule in some context means to worship to be engaged in specific
acts of corporate social worship. It speaks most frequently in
Hebrews of the activity of priestly service. In other settings, it
means to serve God out of deep religious conviction. Thou shalt
worship the Lord by God and him only shall bow. Lot rule shall
bow, sir. And in this context we are told,
a context filled with the language of old covenant cultic worship,
we as the new covenant community, this royal priesthood, these
who come to God through our great high priests are to have grace
whereby we may offer service, whereby we may, as no little
part of that service, worship. Well-pleasing to God, how, with
reverence and awe for our God under the New Covenant, in the
full blazing light of New Covenant privilege secured, revealed,
and applied, our God is a consuming fire. You see, this notion that
in the New Covenant God's revelation of himself has been softened,
is entirely contrary to the Scriptures. Christ has fully exegeted God,
including his holiness likened to that of being a consuming
fire. Was Sinai a revelation of God
as a consuming fire? With thunder and lightning playing
off its cragged edges, with the threat that if a beast so much
as touched the mountain it would die? Is that a revelation of
God as a consuming fire? So much so that the people were
exceedingly afraid. My friends, Sinai pales into
insignificance before Golgotha. When there upon a cross the sinless
incarnate God-man exposing his bosom to the full, unleashed
fury of Almighty God against humans. is plunged in his soul
into the felt pangs of abandonment and dereliction until he cries,
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? There is no lightning
that plays from craggy Sinai. There is no thunder heard beneath
that mount that can begin to match the revelation of God as
a consuming fire when he who is both priest and offering is
consumed by that burning fire of God's holiness and undiluted
justice upon Golgotha. And when we then sing with gratitude
to this God for redemption purchased at so great a price to Himself. Surely our worship will be marked
by exuberant solemnity and by solemn joy. Well, having considered the manifestation
of God's concern for the nature of His worship, The revelation
of God's will for the content of His worship. And here I get
more brief yet. I want you to consider briefly
the identification of the major current corruptions of His worship.
Our vision for these days is a restoration of God's worship
in spirit and truth. And if we are to move in that
direction as intelligent members of our churches and, my dear
brethren in the ministry, as leaders in Christ's church, we
must be able to identify the major current corruptions of
His worship. And I point to just three of
them and give you the heads. Man-made traditions. How does
Jesus feel about them? Read Matthew 15. Well-intentioned
accommodations. We have a generation that doesn't
think deeply. Therefore, our worship must not
make demands upon their minds. We have a generation where everything
is informal and flattened. Therefore, we must get away from
the idea that our dress and appearance has any connection with worship.
God's only concerned with the heart. He doesn't care whether
you've got a shirt and tie on. So we're going to accommodate
to the laid-back, relaxed, egalitarian mood. Every place is the same.
Every activity is the same. Well-intentioned accommodations. Man can't follow the train of
thought in the old hymns that began, as the Bible does, with
a premise and built upon it a conclusion, and from it drew a deduction.
And hymns that have continuity, that demand, I will sing with
the understanding, I will love God, with all my mind. We've
got a television-numbed mental generation. Therefore, let's
accommodate our worship with little ditties that wouldn't
strain the brain of a two-year-old. Mindless repetition. Well-intentioned
accommodation is one of the great corruptions of God's worship.
And thirdly, novel innovations. Men one by walk by our churches
on the Lord's Day, I try to pray for every jogger and every biker
I pass, every Lord's Day sitting, Lord, thank you that that guy,
that gal's not a couch potato and going to go to an early grave
with a cardiac arrest. As far as they're concerned,
but oh God, show them they got a soul and this is your day to
be concerned for their souls. People say, well, they'll keep
jogging by the church and biking by the church until we've got
something to offer that'll get their attention. So let's make
our worship services innovative and attractive. Get them in and
close enough and then we can sneak in the gospel. Well, you
see, God doesn't need a lie in order to promote His truth. And
innovative worship is a lie! It's saying what you're doing
is pleasing to God, when it isn't, if He hasn't mandated it. When
He says, who hath required this at your hand, you and I better
be able to say, oh God, you require it, and that's why I bring it.
And if we can't, don't bring it. It's will-worship, and its
extension is nostrils. And finally, Some exhortations
with regard to the restoration of the purity of God's worship.
My dear, precious fellow pastors, may I presume to exhort you as
a brother in Christ, instruct your people in the biblical doctrine
of worship, instruct your people. Don't assume they're going to
pick it up along the way. Many of them have had no experience
of biblical worship. They've grown up in churches
where the church was viewed from a totally utilitarian perspective
and the concept that the church is God's living temple within
which his blood-bought new covenant priesthood is to have a primarily
God-centered reference point. Not, I want to get and I want
to feel religion, but I've come to give and I've come to adore
the living God. Instruct your people in the biblical
doctrine of worship. Instruct them on the demands
of joyful solemnity in worship. of how it is that God would have
from them the whole sacrifice of engaged mind, the whole sacrifice
of engaged lung and diaphragm and larynx in the singing of
His praise. He would have the whole sacrifice
of the engagement of concentrated mental faculties in your seasons
of corporate prayer. Instruct your people in the biblical
doctrine of worship. Secondly, give frequent exhortations
to your people to be wholly engaged in all their acts of worship.
This is an area in which we need constant reminders, and we must
not bang on our people, but lovingly, graciously exhort them. This
is one of the reasons why we have found, and I'm not pronouncing
for others, but we have found this practice of the reading
through the Psalms as our call to worship so beneficial. Because
you don't get into a rut of sameness and the occasion to be stirred
up to praise is so varied and so multifaceted in this altar. Thirdly, my fellow pastors, be
yourself filled with the Spirit as you lead your people in worship.
There are few things that will more quickly dampen and grieve
and quench the Holy Spirit in worship than a man seeking to
lead in worship who himself is not filled with the Spirit. You
may seek to affect the tones of intensity. and you may seek
to frame the words of penitence and praise, but if in the secret
place before you ever come to that pulpit there has been no
sacrifice of a broken spirit before God, no exuberance of
praise and wonder and worship, no breathless prostration before
God, you will not be able to carry your phony acting into
the pulpit and cut it. with any discerning people. Dear
brethren, let us make it a matter of specific prayer. As much as
we pray, O Lord, may I preach in the power and demonstration
of the Spirit. May I be able to say when I'm
done preaching that my preaching came not in word only, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and the power. O Lord, Fill me with
the spirit that I may lead your people in worship. Whoever is
to be leading them, others in the assembly, fellow elders,
or other men whom God has gifted with the necessary gifts and
graces, be ourselves filled with the spirit if we would lead others
in worship. My fourth exhortation to you,
my brethren, is resist unto blood, and here I call upon the people
of God as well. Resist unto blood any efforts
to profane God's worship, even at the outer edges of its purity
and its sanctity. Why do we run the risk of offending
visitors who will occasionally walk in this place and come down
the front, ignoring the direction of the deacons? and sit with
a kid that begins to squawk, and the moment the kid squawks,
a beacon is on the shoulder ushering them out, and we've had people
get mad at us. Because it's more important what God thinks about
worship than what that visitor thinks about how we treat them.
We may lose them! If they're offended, because
we're going to guard God's worship from the distraction of a crying
baby, And they've got a very low view of God. And the best
way we can teach them they ought to have a higher view is to graciously
usher them out. Now the deacon doesn't come and
grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, follow me. But you see a rose called by
any other name is a rose still. And the ushers are instructed
by their elders, get them out. If they don't have sense enough
to take themselves out, get them out. Why? Why? Is it because we're irritated
with little ones? No! We want nothing to erode
the sanctity of God's worship. And I've preached in churches
all over this country where teenagers are allowed to sit separate from
their families, out from under their scrutiny, and watch care,
and sit and giggle and write notes. And preachers tolerated
it for years. And I had to be the visiting
ogre to call them down in the name of God to stop their foolishness
in the presence of the Sovereign of Heaven. Dear people of God,
guard, guard, guard the sanctity and the purity of the worship
of God and resist all efforts to profane it, even at its outer
edges. I see some of you who represent
the next generation, should the Lord tarry. I plead with you. Pray that God will put these
principles into your spiritual bloodstream and fill up your
spiritual backbone with the steel of commitment to these things.
And when someone innocently suggests, well, if we're going to reach
more people, could we not this? Could we not that? If it is not
a matter of fresh light from the Word of God concerning that
which God says He will have as part of His worship, resist it
unto blood. Show the disposition of your
Savior, not when He benignly stands off in the corner and
has a smile playing off His lips while they sip the better wine
of His creation. that you reflect the Jesus of
the burning eye and the flashing scourge towards anything that
would profane the Father's house. Now you may sit here tonight
as one who's an utter stranger to these great realities when
we've spoken of the blessings of the new covenant, of Christ
as our Redeemer, of our response of gratitude for His grace. And
you say, what in the world is that preacher talking about?
My friend, I say it lovingly, I've been talking about the things
that are the common currency of the people that are on their
way to heaven. And if you're ever to be part of those people
on their way to heaven, you better start taking seriously your abysmal
and inexcusable ignorance about such things as justification,
and adoption, and sanctification, and the blood of the new covenant,
and Jesus as a high priest. Because you see, those words
represent the stuff of the only things that will keep you out
of hell and land you safe in the presence of God for all eternity. And I urge you to take seriously
the issues that are reflected and embodied in those words.
They're not religious gibberish. They reflect the great provisions
of a gracious God for hell-deserving sinners. Provisions both adequate
and sincerely set before you in the gospel. May God grant
that if you are not a worshipper, remember Jesus was talking to
an immoral woman while he evangelized her. And in his evangelizing
of her, he's telling her that if she ever comes to know the
true God, she'll know him in the way of becoming a worshiper
in spirit and in truth. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you with
all of our hearts. for your holy word. We thank
you that you have given us this blessed book as a revelation
of your mind and your will. And we pray that as we have reflected
together on this great, massive issue of the sanctity, the purity
of your worship, that you would take your word and apply it to
every heart with power. and grant that in our day we
may see an increasing return to that worship in spirit and
in truth which you seek and which you delight to receive from your
people through Jesus Christ the Lord. We ask for those who sit
amongst us who see no beauty to captivate the eyes of their
soul, who see nothing that elicits wonder and awe, And, Mystery,
O God, have mercy upon them in their poor, lost condition, and
open their blinded eyes and lovingly and powerfully draw them to the
knowledge of your Son. Seal your word to our hearts,
O God our Father, and accept this poor expression of our attempts
to call upon your name, to worship you, to magnify and exalt your
high and holy name. Hear us, dismiss us with your
blessing resting upon us. We plead through Jesus Christ
our Lord.