On this podcast, Paul White joins us to discuss Chapter 22 in the Baptist Confession of 1689, "Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day." There are eight paragraphs in the chapter that explain the worship of God. Consider as a companion getting the booklet, "Counterfeit worship, Three Essays on the inventions of man in the Worship of God." In this booklet, we find the reformers' doctrine, which was embraced by the Puritans who penned the 1689 confession. In that book, we read John Knox, "All worshipping, honouring or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without His own express commandment, is idolatry. The Mass is invented by the brain of man, without any commandment of God; therefore is idolatry."

� to the Church and Family Life podcast and we're here to talk about the worship of God using the Baptist Confession of 1689 chapter 22 that gives eight paragraphs to describe the worship of God. Of course the Baptist Confession of 1689 is a Puritan era doctrine, you know, after the reformers and we all know about the Reformation, but we want to talk about how God regulates worship. I put together a booklet called Counterfeit Worship a while back �. Three essays on the inventions of man in the worship of God. And that's really what this chapter addresses.

These are three essays, one by myself, one by Kevin Reed, and one by John Knox, who had tremendously graphic language to use about those who would invent worship from the brain of man. His classic statement in this book is, All worshiping, honouring or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God without his express commandment is idolatry. The Mass is invented by the brain of man without any commandment of God therefore it is idolatry. Knox used the word thraldim for the Roman church that the Roman church had fallen into the trap of just trying to thrill people with candles and all kinds of things, inventions, inventing all kinds of things around the worship of God. And so he was standing against it in the Reformation.

Well, the Puritans continued to explain this matter of how God regulates worship. We use the term the regulative principle of worship, and so these eight paragraphs really describe what that looks like. So I have Jason Dome with me again. Jason, thanks for joining us. Hi, Scott.

We're here with Paul White, too. The three of us have preached on some of these things together in Africa. We sure have, Paul White, a pastor at Covenant Bible Church. � in North Carolina, just about two hours from us. We're glad you're close.

It's good to be close. And you're not only just close physically, you're internet close. So here we are. Yeah. So yeah, Paul, thank you.

Thank you for joining us. Let's do this. I'm just going to throw this out to both of you. Sort of give a global statement about this chapter in the confession on the worship of God. So we'll start with you and then we'll just dive into these eight paragraphs.

We're going to try to touch on all of them if we can, but go ahead, Paul. Well I think one of the things that I pointed out to our church was the structure of our confession. Coming right out of the chapter on Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. We go into worship which was obviously a big deal as you said in in the Reformation period in the time of the Puritans. You know, we as Christians are the freest people in the universe because we have been freed by Christ to worship God in a way that is actually acceptable to God.

We can know that we have the smile of God, which is a great freedom that, you know, it seems like all men strive in some sense to want to to please whatever deity they have fashioned in their minds, we have been set free to know the true God and to worship him in a way that pleases him, which is really a freeing thing. It's beautiful. Amen. So, Scott, you use the term regulator principle of worship it doesn't actually it's a term that doesn't actually appear in the confession but in this first paragraph, point one of the confession has this phrase, limited by his own revealed will. And really, I think that's the banner that's over it all.

If you just had .1, you would end up going to your Bible to derive the rest of them, even if you didn't have the rest of them at your fingertips. And the whole point is that God is the object of worship, is the one to prescribe how he desires to be worshipped. And all of mankind ought to content ourselves with that. I think the kind of the flagship text for this is Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 through 3. Let me read that.

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. So there's the key phrase. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord and Moses said to Aaron this is what the Lord spoke saying by those who come near me I must be regarded as holy and before all the people I must be glorified. So when you when you examine this text what you don't find is Nadab and Abihu doing something that was explicitly prohibited by God and the law. In other words, you can't find a place in the law that says don't do this.

But God told them how they ought to worship Him, and they substituted something else. The phrase in the text is, which He had not commanded them. And He judged them for it. And with what Moses says that that God's pronouncement on this was he said God says I must be regarded as holy by those who come near me so it's It's calling God not holy to substitute your own worship patterns for the things that God has expressed to please him in worship. Yeah, and with what?

And he- they define it here in this first paragraph. He may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in our fingers. � in holy scripture So this just sets apart the whole idea of creativity, where not the worship of God is not the place for creativity. It's not the place to become a coolness technician. You know, hey, when I was in seminary, you know, They kind of taught us to be really creative in worship.

That was the wrong direction. And so this is really a hit against a lot of creativity in worship. What kind of creativity is lawful? None. We have elements in worship that are incidentals, that, you know, include lighting and microphones and things like that.

We wouldn't call those inventions. Right. Or chairs or, you know, those types of things. Yes, Scott, I think we would say scripture sets the boundaries. So it calls for preaching in the � from or what topics to preach from.

Obviously, you want to be led by the Holy Spirit as you're able to be, but you're not going to find a prescription for that. But that's within the boundaries, So that wouldn't be... The reason we hesitated there is we wouldn't really consider that creativity, because it's happening within the boundaries set by the Word of God. Right. And examples would be, well, do you use hymn books or do you broadcast on a screen?

Well, it's not addressed in this principle. But singing is. But singing is. Right, so scripture has set the boundaries. The people of God, when they meet, they sing praises to God.

Any more on this first paragraph? It's sort of the litmus test. You know, I think of Deuteronomy 1232. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it, you shall not add to it or take away from it. That's the heart of the regulatory principle, exactly.

Yeah, just to add to that, back in the first chapter of our confession, paragraph six. It says there are some things. Circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church common to human actions and societies, which are ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed. So again, � обытиpian prudence that still assumes God has instilled something in us. And so even there, yeah, it's hard to call that creativity.

Okay, so paragraph two really has it's focus on to whom worship is directed. And who it isn't directed. There you go. So how do we apply that? What's the principle here?

Essentially, it says that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is to be the object of worship and not saints and not angels. And so what you find in a lot of this, and this is common to the 1689 confession, but it is addressing the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. So I mean, it's a timeless document, but you can definitely tell the time period in which in which they were writing it this is aimed at certain practices yeah and you can see even in scripture Revelation 19 you know when John's confronted by an angel he falls down and worships you know there was there's something about angels that invokes something like worship and obviously the angel says get up you know it's it's it's clear that there are creatures and there is the Creator, and the Creator alone is worthy of worship and there is no creature of any status or being that is worthy of our worship. You know, and just practically when you gather the people of God together, you want the focus to be God. You want to eliminate things that distract people from God.

And that can be a challenge. But you know, when people come to our churches, we want them to have heard from God you know there there are certain matters that are a blessing the fellowship is a blessing and you know it's it's it's a blessing to be in a building but we will we want them to go away with a sense of God the styles of music might be acceptable or not acceptable to someone but we want them to come away � with the sense of God. And so that's why the Word of God is central. You know, that's why these elements that are described here are essential. We can't compromise with them and they need to be front and center.

But, you know, I think we want to do whatever we can to focus people on God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to Him alone. I'm quoting, of course, from this paragraph. Yeah. � and the beautiful thing flowing out of that is leads into the mediation of Christ, which is negative. Yes, there is no other mediator, but positively again, we have the blessing of a mediator in our worship.

One thing that I tried to point out when teaching through this was very often we stop the mediation of Christ merely in that work of salvation or that's where we focus it. But the glory of it is that even now he takes our worship and mediates that worship. One of the favorite illustrations of mine, and I can't remember where I heard it or read it, but it was with reference to prayer. But I would apply it to all of worship, that as we worship God, we're sort of like a young child who wants to gather a bouquet of flowers for his mother. And in his excitement, he grabs some weeds and some root balls and things like that.

Well, we're like that in our worship, that the very best that we can bring is still tainted with sin and corruption. Christ is the one who stands there and receives that worship, removes the weeds, cuts off the root balls and gives to the Father a perfect worship. We are the ones who receive the blessing for that, as if we had offered a perfect worship and anybody who has ever attempted to worship God realizes that we fall very far short in a lot of our worship so it's it's a blessing to have a mediator. Yeah, you know, the Lord. Jesus said to Satan, you shall worship the Lord, your God and him only.

Shall you serve and we do recognize our our worship is imperfect. We get distracted, you know, There are all kinds of pamphlets and sermons written about distraction, getting distracted in church and things like that. Everybody deals with that. So we must have a mediator. Yeah.

Someone to stand for us. Yeah. What a blessing. Okay, paragraph three. The focus in paragraph three is prayer.

Prayer with thanks � being one part of natural worship is by God required of all men. So let's talk about that. How does that look in a local church? It gives you just some great guidelines for prayer. It says it should be offered to God in the name of Jesus by the help of the Holy Spirit says it should be earnest, fervent, heartfelt.

And so, I mean, this is a would be a really good paragraph to read right before a corporate prayer time to just center us on what is prayer house or how ought we to go about this? Yeah, absolutely. What I what I tried to when we introduced this was I tried to point out the fact that there are so many things, books and writings on prayer for me personally, whenever I go through things like that, I just feel pretty miserable and I feel like an awful prayer, because it seems like everything that you read and hear and see is so lofty. But I try to encourage our people that, you know, the disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray and he taught them and it is a discipline that we do start with early but there's always room for growth and like you said this is a great very simple and general overview that we can begin with to pursue growth in prayer. Nobody starts off at the top you know and if you if you a lot of the books that you pick up and read on prayer you you're going to read � be taught how to pray.

I'm counting 10 things that he uses here like you said this would be great just as an instructional tool 10 things in the name of the Son by the help of the Spirit according to his will with understanding with reverence with humility with fervency with faith with love and with perseverance, and when with others, in a known tongue. In other words, not babbling, not tongues the way that Pentecostals might conceive of it but rather in a known tongue so everybody can understand. There's your next sermon series all laid out for you. There it is, yeah. Way to go.

Yeah, on prayer, fantastic. So we pray when we come together. And then in the fourth paragraph, he continues to talk about prayer, the kinds of things that we can pray about. Prayer is to be made for things lawful. Now let's just talk about that here.

He sets some boundaries and opens up some windows for what we can pray for. So let's talk about that. Again, the word of God is the bedrock of every bit of our worship. We want to know, a Christian wants to know that he has pleased God in his actions, not to earn his salvation, but because it is his God. And so when we consider, well, what is lawful?

Well, God has revealed to us what is lawful and things that are unlawful and if we if we will stick to that we can have we can have that that approval of the Lord in And it really even goes back to the idea of creativity. We don't have to invent or come up with or wonder or fret about our prayers. We can learn from the word of God how to pray in a way that pleases him. He talks about all men here, all sorts of men that's reminiscent of 1st Timothy 2, 1 and 2. I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.

So they're pulling it right out of the language of first Timothy too and you don't need to pray for the dead they're dead it's over you're not going to be able to buy them out of a few years of purgatory. That's kind of the idea. So then paragraph 5, the various elements of worship. Now here you get down to I think what's one of the most practical parts of the whole chapter. So he itemizes these things.

So let's just talk about each one of them. I'll just throw them out one by one, and you can make a commentary on it. The reading of the scriptures. That's the first one. Yeah, I think just just to make a comment on the whole the whole body of what is given here.

This is what scripture gives us a warrant to do in the corporate worship of the people of God. So it doesn't have to be restricted to corporate worship. We certainly should be reading the scriptures outside of corporate worship. But we have warrant in scripture to read scripture in the meetings and to sing and for preaching. I'm working down the list, maybe I'm jumping the gun on you.

But the administration of baptism, the Lord's Supper, these are the things that scripture calls the people of God to do when they worship corporately. You know, I preached in a church out of town yesterday, and during the service, a man got up and he read the scriptures. �'s Day. Yeah, right. With the word of scripture.

With the word of scripture, yeah. It's from the Word of God that we know God and everything in our worship. You could go down this list. Every one of them is rooted in the word of God, even down to the sacraments. You know, they are they are pictures that show us what the word of God teaches us.

And it's through all of these that we learn about our God and when the people of God come together and learn and are taught and receive into their hearts and their minds the, the revelation of who God is to all of these means, that's how we are strengthened and given grace for, for every everything that God calls us to do in this life it's it you know it's all rooted in in God's self revelation and then you know preaching you know we don't preach this preaching is the most amazing communication device. Paul called it foolishness. I think we understand the truth of that. But so there's preaching. There's as a result hearing the word of God and then admonishing one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord.

The administration of baptism, the Lord's Supper, these are all parts of worship. So there they are, There's the list. So when people go to your church, you know, in 10 or 20 years, they should just experience these same things. Yep. The things that God has ordained, they're the things that are always a blessing in every generation.

You don't need to make it up for a new generation. Right. Yeah. This is the whole duty of man. Fear God, keep his commandments.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. He, we simply obey him. And then the sixth paragraph, the play, � be worshiped anywhere in private families. There's actually an obligation placed on private families to worship God. And then you have the seventh paragraph on the Lord's Day.

This is pivotal. I think the first paragraph casts a vision, but when you get to the seventh paragraph, you start getting down to some really specific brass tacks. So let's talk about that. Well, there, what is being used as a phrase from Revelation Chapter one verse 10 where the Apostle John says that he was in the spirit on the Lord's Day. So everyone who names the name of Christ has to do something with that phrase.

The people that say it's passed away have to reckon with this phrase, the Lord's Day was used in the last deposit of revelation that was given before the closing of the canon. So it was news to John that the Lord didn't have a day that was different in some way to merit the title, so they go from there. Yeah, there are those who would take that phrase and say, well it's synonymous with the Day of the Lord from Old Testament passages and New Testament passages. In essence, and they really are trying to destroy the concept of the first day of the week, Lord's Day. The irony of the argument is it means something different than you're saying it means as long as you change the words.

Because it doesn't say the day of the Lord it is the Lord's Day. And I think history proves it out that that's the way the church has taken it from the time of the resurrection of Christ. And then in the final paragraph, the authors make it clear it's a holy rest all day. And then he gives a list from their own works from words thoughts and about their worldly employment recreations and it's the design of God to bring the whole day under these you know public and private focal points of worship So this is perhaps the most neglected and controversial paragraph in here at seven and eight about the Lord's Day. They call it the Christian Sabbath.

We, at our church, preached a few sermons on the Lord's Day. One of the weeks was given to Isaiah chapter 58, which has just two verses about the Lord's Day, but about the Sabbath. But they're just power-packed. And I tried to make the argument from Isaiah 58 verses 13 and 14 that if the Lord's Day or the Sabbath has passed away, that you should actually be sorry. Let me read those verses.

You should actually bemoan the fact that it has passed away if the people who say that it has, has passed away. Let me read these two verses. Isaiah 58 13-14 if you turn away your foot from the Sabbath from doing your pleasure on my holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy day of the Lord honorable and shall honor him not doing your own ways nor finding your own pleasure nor speaking your own words then you shall delight yourself in the Lord and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken. Has anyone ever felt dry, has anyone ever felt spiritually hungry, needy? Well, here we've been given a way to delight in the Lord, and it's to take a day to set aside our own words, our own pleasures, our own ways for God's ways, God's pleasures, God's words, and there is a promise that comes with it, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord.

So I think when we find ourselves wishing we had more delight in the Lord, one of the things we would do to troubleshoot that is to say, am I taking a day of the week to rest my body, rest my mind and feed my soul? God has actually given us seven and a half weeks to rest our minds, 𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘥 our bodies, 𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘥 our souls. There's 52 weeks a year, one day a week, that's seven and a half weeks to to rest and worship God. Yeah, it's a it's a pre consummation experience of, of, you know, that that the freedom of the sons of God that Paul talks about in Romans 8, you know, we get that as a gift. There are people who would see the regulative principle as limiting, and it uses the word limited.

There are people who, you know, they despise the Lord's day because they see that as a limitation on them. But a Christian says, no, the bondage is that I can't do it fully the way I want to. And it draws us to look forward to that day when we will enter into the eternal Sabbath. And not speaking of our own works and words and thoughts and worldly employments and Rick, well, that won't be difficult then. Now it's hard to figure out how to balance that and what it looks like and which conversations we have to walk away from and things like that, which we obviously don't do that.

But we realize it's a struggle. We long to be in glory. And here we have 24 hours and we're thinking, it's hard, Someday, it's not going to be hard and so I just look at it as glory practice. So, Paul and Scott, there's a great quote by William Wilberforce where he talks about men who he regarded as much more gifted as himself, but he really saw them fall by the wayside and break down. And he attributed it to the fact that he took a day to rest his mind rest his body and feed his soul and they didn't and he essentially says they would never unstring the bow so the the tension was never off they never rested their their bodies of their minds or fed their souls So the tension was just on and on and on.

And finally, even though they had massive gifts that he didn't enjoy, he could keep going when they couldn't. Amen. So all this is obviously for the blessing of God's people. It's a day of delight. It's a day of rest.

Pharaoh, the great Satan, did not give the people rest in Egypt. And he doesn't want to give you rest now so he'd like to get you distracted playing, you know, putting your life into fruitless things. But God's called you to delight and what a blessing that is. It's something we should take so seriously and this chapter really, really helps us to see how good God is he shows us how to govern our days and how to spend our time and he wants to control your time but but he wants he wants to control your time for delight yeah so thank you brothers appreciate it very much So thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up.

Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.