This is so fundamental to our thinking about church. And it is completely off the radar to most people. A decade ago this was completely off my radar. I didn't even know there was a debate. I didn't know there were competing principles that should be weighed, evaluated, and either accepted or rejected.

And it's a filter through which you see all of church life. And you do have a filter. You might have a filter by default, but you do have a filter by which you look at church life. Paul penned these words to Timothy. I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God.

Not everything is appropriate for the house of God. But the question is, we all agree on that. The question is, who gets to decide what's appropriate for the house of God, and what principles do you act on to decide what's appropriate in the house of God. And the fundamental questions are, when we approach the Scriptures, and all sides within Christendom agree that we ought to approach the Scriptures for these things. But when we do approach the Scriptures, what question are we asking?

Are we asking, what must we do? Or are we coming to the Scriptures asking, what must we not do? And what you decide about that, which question you're going to ask when you approach the scriptures, forms the framework, forms the grid through which you'll evaluate church life. So today we're going to talk. When we have cloud cover, you'll have the benefit of audio-visual.

And when we don't, you'll just have to track with what I'm saying. But today we're going to talk about how we keep our worship God-centered and biblical. How we keep our worship God-centered and biblical. And I want to make an argument that there's three keys to it. And it's all related to view of Scripture, doctrine of Scripture.

And we're going to be looking at lots and lots of different Scriptures. Normally when I teach, I like to just home in on a handful of cortex and spend my time there. Today we're going to look at 22 different Scriptures. It's going to be really fast paced. We'll be jumping one from another.

The reason I'm doing that and departing from the normal practice is that when we look at doctrine of Scripture, it's silly not to have a doctrine of Scripture that's based on Scripture. So we have to go and we have to see all the different places that Scripture makes claims about itself and how we should apply those claims. And we'll be doing that. So there are three things we're going to look at. Three keys to biblical worship.

One is the inerrancy of Scripture. A very broad topic. But We're going to look at what the Bible says about itself and where it came from. Two, the sufficiency of Scripture. In other words, what is the range that Scripture governs?

And number three, the regulative principle of worship, which is really a doctrine that applies specifically to the corporate worship life of God's church. Let's pray. God, we thank You for Your Word. It's a light to our path. It's a lamp to our feet.

What would we do without Your Word? We come to Your Word today, submitting ourselves to it, desiring to be under its authority, and to trust it for all things. Oh, God, help us to understand what You've said about all these things, in Jesus' name. Amen. So we begin with the inerrancy of Scripture, the flagship passage for the inerrancy of Scripture, you'd have to be hard-pressed to come up with a better one than this one.

And it's Psalm 19 which reads, The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb. By them your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward." There's no point in having a book and holding it up to be the Word of God unless it claims to be the Word of God. There's no point in having a book and saying it's pure and inerrant unless it says of itself It's pure and inerrant. You might have a book that makes that claim and the claims are false, but you'll never have a book that's the Word of God that does not make those claims of itself.

And the Bible does make those claims of itself. So we can evaluate and determine that we will accept or reject those claims. But make no mistake, the Bible claims to be the inerrant, perfect, pure, right, righteous, altogether true word of God. In 1978, something happened that was very pivotal to evangelicalism in North America. And that is that 300 prominent evangelical scholars came together in Chicago and worked on a statement of inerrancy.

And the reason they did this is the Bible was under attack. The inerrancy of Scripture was under attack. There was a branch of theologians that were eroding our trust that the Bible was actually the Word of God and it was infallible in the things upon which it touches. And so they came together and they structured a statement which has five main points to it. And they were men like James Montgomery Boice, J.I.

Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul, many others, and many of the giants of the faith in our day were there defending the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. So the five points. I'll give them to you quickly and we'll look at Scriptures that substantiate this. And I just want to start by saying that these were not men who came together to say something new.

These were men who came together to formulate a concise statement on what the Bible says about itself, where it came from, how it is to be applied, and whether it's infallible or not. So five points. Point number one, that God gave us the Scriptures directly and that He did so so that He could reveal Himself to us. How would man know about God unless He revealed Himself to man? Is God required to reveal Himself to us?

No, He is not. But He is desired to. He's not required to, but He is desired to reveal Himself to His people and He's done it through His Word. Three Scriptures to bear this out. John 17, 17, Sanctify them by your truth.

Your Word is truth. The Word of God is truth itself, and it's the method for our sanctification. Number two. Number two comes from the road to Emmaus. And Jesus in disguise is with disciples.

And it says this, Luke 24, 27, and beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. So Jesus was able to preach the Gospel about Himself from the Old Testament Scriptures. And the point of this is that The Bible is God's revelation of Himself to man. And of course, the perfect manifestation of that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He came, He lived in flesh, He showed us what it's like to be God on this earth.

And so Jesus is able to take the Scriptures and testify of Himself from the Old Testament. A very similar passage to that is Acts 28 verse 23. And this happens when Paul's under house arrest and people are coming to him and He is proclaiming the gospels, again from the Old Testament Scriptures. Acts 28-23, So when they had appointed Him a day, many came to Him at His lodging, to whom He explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening." Paul could take from morning till evening to go through the Old Testament Scriptures and talk about himself. The Scriptures are how God reveals Himself to man, even about the Messiah and the coming of Jesus Christ.

So point number one is God gave us the Scriptures directly and this is how He reveals Himself to man. Point number two of the Chicago statement on inerrancy is that the Bible is infallible, it's perfect, and it is the very Word of God. In other words, there might have been many authors, But really, ultimately, God is the author of the Bible. Jesus Christ is the Word. And He might have worked through many different agents, but He is the author of the Bible.

And this has implications for what we should do with it. The fact that God is the author of The Bible means we're not free to decide whether we're going to obey it or not to obey it. We are bound to obey the Bible because He is the author of this book. First text to touch on here is 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." God is the author of the Bible.

The Holy Spirit moved men and that this is not of a private interpretation, but men were moved by God to write down exactly to the jot and tittle what God was showing them. Psalm 119, verse 160, The entirety of Your Word is truth, and every one of your judgments endures forever." How do you like that? We can almost say that and stop there. The entirety of the Word of God is truth. Genesis 1 to Revelation...

What's the last chapter? 21? To Revelation 20 or 21. I'm not sure. Every word from cover to cover is truth.

And every one of His judgments will endure forever. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6, Every word of God is pure. Every word. One thing I want us to notice here is that the categorical nature of the language is used. These Bible authors are eliminating all wiggle room.

They're not allowing us to think something different than what they're trying to communicate because they're using categorical language. Every Word of God, all, all these categorical words, every Word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar." The Word of God is limited and distinct. He has given His Word, and we add to it at our own peril.

Point number three of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. By the way, I would encourage you, Google the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy and read it. It's beautiful, it's concise. These are brilliant men who worked really hard on the language to help us understand what the Bible teaches about itself. Point number three.

This is no normal book. This is no normal book. It comes with a tutor for those who have bowed their knee and confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord. It comes with a tutor. The Holy Spirit quickens us.

The authentication of the Scriptures we need go no further than the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He testifies inside us that this is the Word of God and that it's true. Hebrews 4-12, For the Word of God is living and powerful. It's not like the other books on your shelf. It's living and powerful.

And sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Find another book that makes that claim of itself. The Bible is without peer. It is a book like no other. Point number four, if this is indeed the Word of God, then it is without error. If God is really the author of the Bible, then it is without error and not just correct with regards to abstract principles, spiritual principles, but in its entirety.

Here's what these men were defending against. The thought that, well, for matters of church life, the Bible is adequate, but these other spheres of life, the Bible's not trustworthy in those areas. And these men came together and said, No, if God's the author of the Bible, then God knows history, and the history of the Bible is reliable. And they were defending the Bible against attacks by this branch of theologians that was eroding our confidence in the Word of God. Matthew 22, 31 and 32.

So, these two Scriptures are worth the price of admission. So they say that you'll only retain 10% of what I'm saying here today, which by the way is a very depressing thought for me. That you'll only remember... I worked very hard on this and you're only going to remember 10%. But if that is true, then I want to choose the 10% that you're going to remember.

And this is the 10%. I want you to remember these two next verses. Because in these two verses, we have Jesus handling Scripture in a way that shows His view of Scripture. And we have Paul using Scripture in a way that shows how He viewed Scripture. So Matthew 22, 31 and 32, Jesus is getting pinned down about whether there's a resurrection or not.

They're trying to trap Jesus. And Jesus makes His argument based on one verb tense of one word, and then He stops. He does not add to His argument. He does not supplement His argument. He rests the whole weight of his argument on a single verb tense.

I want you to see this. Matthew 22, 31 and 32. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The argument that Jesus is making is There has to be a resurrection of the dead because this verb tense is present tense.

If there wasn't a resurrection of the dead, it would be past tense. Now think about that. Think about the precision and the accuracy that Jesus is presuming in His argument. And He expects His hearers to accept His argument. He's saying here that what was written is what was spoken to them by God.

And it's accurate and precise down to the verb tense of a single word, to the extent that when his enemies came and questioned him, he would rest his whole argument on it. Isn't that amazing? Second Scripture. Galatians 3, 16. Paul is making an argument that Jesus is really the recipient of the promises that God made to Abraham.

And he's going to make an argument based on whether one single word is either plural or whether it's singular. And he doesn't supplement his argument. He doesn't add to his argument. He says it and stops, just like Jesus did. Galatians 3, 16.

Now to Abraham and His seed, singular, where the promise is made. He does not say, and to seeds, plural, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ. And then He rests. He rests His argument. Paul and Jesus Christ both believe that the Scripture was given with such accuracy, with such precision that they could make arguments based on a single verb tense, based on whether one word was plural or singular.

If it's good enough for Jesus Christ and it's good enough for Paul, it better be good enough for Jason Dohme. And I don't know what your name is, but it ought to be good enough for you as well. Finally, point number five. We cast aside bits and pieces of the Scripture at our own risk. You cast aside a bit or a piece of Scripture at your own risk.

Because then it becomes inspired in spots theology. Do you know what that is? It means that the Scriptures are inspired in spots. And that means you have to be inspired to spot the spots that are inspired. And that means that now I'm above Scripture and I'll say what's inspired and where the errors are.

And where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us largely where we are today, honestly. But your whole doctrine of Scripture falls apart when you take a bit and say, That's not inspired. Because then you've raised yourself above Scripture. And then Scripture is not the authority.

Scripture is your tool to make whatever case you want to make. Haven't we seen that? Two verses. 1 Thessalonians 2, 13, Paul is commending the Thessalonians because they received it as the Word of God. For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing.

Because when you received the Word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which also effectively works in you who believe. And finally, Isaiah 8, 19-20. This should be the theme for our talk today. And when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?

To the law and the testimony. If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them. All light is in the Word of God. We don't have any light that is not in the Word of God. And so when we hear those around us who are clamoring for wizards, whisperers, and murderers, we should say, to the law and the testimony, to the extent that we want light, we will flee to the Word of God.

May God give us this spirit. So Those are the five points of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. And I would just like to praise the work that these men did. They successfully defended the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and preserved it for us. And we are the beneficiaries of it.

There's not a wide debate on the inerrancy of Scripture. Now, there is still some debate that remains, but there is a stronghold of people who hold doggedly to the inerrancy of Scripture. We should be thankful to these men because we have them largely to thank for defending it. Secondly, we'll move on to the sufficiency of scripture. Sufficiency of scripture shifts from what is scripture like, which is it's from God directly.

He's the author of it and it's infallible. The sufficiency of Scripture begins to talk about what is the scope of Scripture. In other words, does Scripture talk about only some things and only regulate some things or is it for all of life? And the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is, It is for all of life. And the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is, it is for all of life.

And the flagship passage for that is one of the most famous Scriptures that we have, which is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." What a treasure this text is. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Here again we have categorical language which eliminates wiggle room. And we see that it is given by the inspiration of God.

Some translations render that it's God-breathed. It emanates from God. He is the author of it. And then we see that it's complete. The Scriptures are sufficient for everything that pertains to life and godliness.

Now, I'm not sure what categories lie outside of life and godliness, but this is a really broad scope and the Scriptures are sufficient for it. And what is being said when we affirm that it is complete is that it speaks to everything either directly or through principle. So is a Bible a textbook on science? No, it's not a science textbook. But does it give us the principles by which science should be governed?

Absolutely. So it speaks to everything either directly or through principles that can be easily discerned from texts of Scripture. And you've probably heard of the Desert Island Challenge, but it's worth reiterating here. The Desert Island Challenge is this. If you were stranded on a desert island and you had a library of one book and that book was in the Bible.

How would you order your life? How would you determine how to educate your children? How would you determine how you should worship God? How would you determine how you would order all of your life. You only had that one book.

I submit to you we only have one book. Only one book that we can trust from cover to cover and know that God is the author of it. We should live like we're on the desert island. We should subject ourselves to the desert island challenge a hundred times a day. If all I had was the Bible, how would I order my life in this category?

Matthew 4. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is not a trite statement when it comes from a man who's been fasting for 40 days. This is a hungry man, but this man says, I don't need physical bread half as much as I need the Word of God. I'll skip another 40 days.

But man must have the Word of God. And it means we hang on God's every word. It means it's how we sustain our life. All things related to life and godliness. Deuteronomy 32, Peter mentioned this earlier, verses 45-47.

Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel and he said to them, Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command to your children to be careful to observe all the words of this law, for it is not a futile thing for you because it is your life. And by this word, you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess." All these words, all this law, give those to your children. It's not a futile thing. It's your life. And this became a basis for the Protestant Reformations where we got the five solas that we're so indebted to today.

Sola Fide, by faith alone. Sola Christo, by Christ alone. Sola Gracias, by grace alone. Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone. And Sola Scriptura, by Scripture alone.

Scripture is the gold standard by which we compare everything. Scripture is the plumb line by which we determine whether something is straight or crooked. The sufficiency of Scripture is our spiritual heritage, and we should cling to it. We should cling to it with all our might. And the doctrine of sola scriptura is so beautifully portrayed in Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of mockers, but His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law He meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever He does shall prosper." This is the promise to those who will cling to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. That Scripture is enough, that it's complete, that it will make you thoroughly equipped for every good work. There is not a good work that you can conceive that is not founded and regulated by the Word of God. Otherwise, it's not true that it's complete and that it will thoroughly equip you for every good work.

You cannot conceive of a good work that is not regulated and founded in holy Scripture. So we've talked about the inerrancy of Scripture. We've talked about the sufficiency of Scripture. Now we'll talk about the regulative principle of worship. A narrowing of the scope to a particular area of life which is the worship of God.

You could probably successfully argue that all of life is the worship of God, but there are particular practices that we engage in in the corporate worship of God's people. And this is really what I'm speaking of here today. So there are two competing principles. There's a regulative principle of worship And the competing principle is the normative principle of worship. And I hadn't even heard these things until ten years ago maybe.

And I didn't even know there were competing principles and that I needed to really reflect on them and choose one. But it's the grid through which you see all of church life. And I want to say that this is a family fight. Christians and pagans don't argue about the regulative principle of worship. Christians and Christians argue about whether it's the regulative principle of worship is right or whether the normative principle of worship is right.

And so I'm going to name one principle, and I'm going to say the poster child for that principle is John Calvin. And I'm going to name the other principle. I'm going to say the poster child of that principle is Martin Luther. Now, which one of those do you want to throw out of the Christian camp? John Calvin or Martin Luther?

I don't want to be picking between these men. I definitely have... I know which principle I think is true and I'm advocating for it with all my might, with all the might that God would give me today. But I think we have to understand that this is a debate within the family. That there are God-fearing men and women who take the other side of this debate.

And though we may think that their position has taken us on a road that has been destructive for the church, we should be very reluctant to want to throw them off the boat. So the two principles, I'm going to define them briefly and then talk about them at length. First, the Regulative Principle. And this principle, just very simply defined is, Whatever is not warranted by Scripture is forbidden. If it's not a practice that has a firm footing in the Scriptures, we are not at liberty to engage in it.

The competing principle is the normative principle which says, whatever is not specifically prohibited by Scripture is permitted. Whatever is not specifically prohibited by Scripture is permitted. So let's look at these in detail. Here's how Mark Dever defines the Regulator Principle in the book that he wrote called The Deliberate Church. He says, Briefly, the Regulator Principle states that everything we do in a corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted by Scripture.

Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text. And people who advocate for the regulative Principle would say, there's three ways that you can have scriptural warrant. One is a command, and that's the easy one. God says, do it so you do it. And we all agree about that.

Two is that there's a precept, or there's a principle that you can say, This is a really clear principle in Scripture. This is warrant for church life. We're going to do it based on this principle. And the third is, there's a pattern. There's a pattern that emerges when we look at the New Testament life of the church, and they're doing it over and over, and it seems to be good.

A pattern can serve as a warrant, a scriptural warrant for a practice. And lest we think that everybody within the regular principal camp shares one brain and we all think the same thoughts At the same time, there's lots of debate within the camp, and it's over the phrase, good and necessary implication of a biblical text. There are many in the Regulative Principle camp who think you should baptize babies. There are many in the Regulative Camp who think you should never baptize a baby. They all claim to be part of the camp of the Regulative principle of worship.

And they all say that their position is founded on the good and necessary implication of biblical text. They both can't be right. And we're not here to talk about who's right today, but I can tell you afterwards. No, I'm just kidding. That's a joke.

So it doesn't eliminate all debate, but it specifies the grounds for the debate. And the grounds for the debate on what do you see in Scripture? Either a command, either a precept or a principle, or a pattern in Scripture. And fundamentally, it is about going to the Scripture to ask the question, What must we do? What must we do?

And then we restrict our practices to these things. I don't like the word restrict. I think it's accurate. I think it's an accurate word, but I don't like the word restrict because it sounds so negative. So I'll say it more positively, that we preserve ourselves for the beautiful practices that we find in scriptures.

And we just won't allow ourselves to be diverted from these principles. I think that might be a better way to say it. That we say, these are the things we see in Scripture. We'll save all our time for those things. We'll save all our money for those things.

We'll save all of our resources for those things. And we won't allow anything else to crowd them out. Here's what John Knox says. So Scott and I, in case you haven't noticed, Scott and I like to pick great heroes of the faith and find quotes that are really outrageous so that we don't have to say these things ourselves. And we can just blame it on John Knox or Richard Baxter, and I'm going to do that right now.

John Knox said this, All worshiping, honoring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God without His own express commandment is idolatry. So here's the argument. If you made up something for the worship of God, I don't know what God you're worshiping, but it's not the God of the Bible. You made up a practice and you go worship your made up God with it, is what John Knox is saying. Here's how a couple of the historic confessions of faith have phrased it.

The first is the French confession of faith in 1559. It says, We believe that the word contained in these books has proceeded from God and receives its authority from Him alone and not from men. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all that is necessary for the service of God and our salvation, It is not lawful for men nor even for angels to add to it, or to take away from it, or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity or custom or numbers or human tradition or judgments or proclamations or edicts or decrees or counsels or visions or miracles should be opposed to these holy Scriptures, but on the contrary, that all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them." I love how this confession just piles up the list of things that can make a claim on the corporate practices of God's people. And the French confession of faith says, Away with these things!

All things must be regulated, examined, and reformed according to the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone. And to the extent that these other things line up with the Scriptures, hooray! To the extent that they don't, be gone with them. A second historic confession of faith, second London Baptist confession of 1689 in chapter 22 on worship. The light of nature shows that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is just and good, and who does good to all.

Therefore, He is to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might. Now the whole Christian community can say, Amen, hallelujah, î up to this point in the confession. Here's where the break occurs. But, the acceptable way of worshiping the true God has been instituted by Himself, and therefore our method of worship is limited by His own revealed will. He may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan.

He may not be worshiped by way of visible representations or by any other way not prescribed in the holy Scriptures. I don't know of a better articulation of the regulative principle of worship than that. And there's a sense in which It's just the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture applied to corporate church life. But it is more than that. It's an attempt to acknowledge that the worship of God is a special category, whereas when it's time for you to make a decision about whether you're going to take that job in another city or not.

There are principles, as the sufficiency of Scripture would say, there are principles definitely that you need to apply. You need to draw from the Scriptures and apply to that decision so that in a sense the Scriptures are still governing that decision. But it's not prescribed whether you should go take that job in Buffalo or stay in Toronto. But that the category of the corporate worship life of the church is different. That God has always been very careful and very prescriptive about how He desires to be worshipped.

And that the Creator always, always, always gets to, retains the right to say how He is to be worshipped by the creature. And that God has asserted that right by giving us His Word. So the normative principle at length. Again, the basic definition is whatever is not specifically prohibited by Scripture is permitted. And in the same way the regular folks don't share a brain, the normative folks don't share a brain either.

And they have arguments in their camp too, and it's over the phrase, not specifically prohibited. There's not perfect unanimity within that camp about what it means, that it's not specifically prohibited, and what the boundaries of that are. But fundamentally, they're looking at the Scriptures and asking the question, what must we not do? What have the Scriptures said are out of bounds for us? And then, if the Scriptures haven't said specifically that they're out of bounds for us, we're at liberty.

We may have liberty on this. And the intended ends for the normative camp and for the regulative camp are essentially the same. They're evangelism. They're discipleship. There's worship.

But on the normative side, there's a massive proliferation of the means. So the ends aren't in debate. We all agree on what the ends are. It's getting people to love the Lord Jesus Christ under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is discipling once they have been.

It's worshiping God from the heart. But the question then becomes how do we get there? And the normative folks say we have a lot of freedom here. If it's not specifically restricted, then it's an area of freedom. And the regular folks say, no, no, no.

If there's not a clear warrant for it in scripture, then we may not do it. And that's the difference. So because there's a proliferation of the means, some of the manifestations in corporate worship life are comedians in the worship service, weightlifting in the worship service, high-pressured altar calls in the worship service, James Bond video clips in the worship service. Seen that one with my own two eyes. And it makes you want to ask the question, where will this end?

And the answer to that question is, as long as brains still have an imagination and people still have ideas that they think are good, it will never end. It goes until people run out of ideas that they think are good ideas and aren't specifically prohibited by the Scriptures. And the motive for these things is often a desire to be relevant, to connect with a lost and dying world that has gone astray and to have an impact for Christ. I don't question the motive. I question the theological understanding of who God is and the doctrine of Scripture, what the Word of God is.

Clearly, I'm strongly advocating for the Regulative Principle. Why? I want to offer four Scriptures that I think get us to the heart of the matter. Four Scriptures. The first one is Deuteronomy 4, 1 and 2.

I'm looking at my watch. We're going to make it. That's good news. Deuteronomy 4, 1 and 2. Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." A key phrase here is that you may keep. Don't add, don't take away, that you may keep. And I want to argue that an accurate, a faithful obedience to the Word of God requires that we not add or take away from the things that God has given us. Consider this text also in Deuteronomy. Eight chapters later, Deuteronomy 12, 29-32.

When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Lord which He hates, they have done to their gods, for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it.

You shall not add to it nor take away from it." So they come into a land, they displace people who have bad religious practices. And Moses isn't saying here, or God isn't saying here, don't go worship those gods. God is saying, don't bring those practices into the worship of me. Don't worship me that way. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it.

You shall not add to it nor take away from it. And this brings us to Colossians 2, an argument that Paul makes. Beware lest anyone cheat you. Cheat you literally translated is plunder you or take you captive. Beware lest anyone plunder you or take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ." If these principles don't have warrant in Scripture, what is the warrant for them?

Brothers and sisters, is there a neutral zone where we can pull principles and practices from? Not according to Paul, not according to what Moses is saying in Deuteronomy. It's not a neutral zone to pull practices from. Paul is setting up a contrast between things that are of Christ and to the basic principles of the world. Where did we get a lot of these practices that we're debating?

They're the basic principles of the world, pure and simple. Finally, where we began, 1 Timothy 3.15, Paul writes to Timothy, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And what Paul is saying is, Timothy, the church is not our playground. Where we experiment on things. There's a very prominent church that has just come out and said, you know what, we got it wrong for the last 25 years.

We really did. We missed a whole generation of people. We need to start with a blank sheet of paper and redesign this thing. Now, if you've given them your children and it didn't work out so good, how confident are you in giving them your grandchildren? Do you want to be giving them your grandchildren?

Or maybe we won't start with a blank sheet of paper after all. Maybe we'll start with the Word of God and find the practices that have clear warrant there and then give all of our heart and soul to those practices. Over and over and over again we think we know better. We think we can bring something in, and like Peter says, it will be more effective. And we get results faster.

And we're going to go through a series of examples here where we see this, men thinking that they know better about what should be offered to God. And these examples answer the question, does God care about the means or does He just care about the big categories, about evangelism, about discipleship, about the worship. And as long as we end up at the end, don't worry about the means. Get there any way you can. Please answer that question.

I'd like to call a couple of witnesses. My first witnesses are the entire books of Exodus and Leviticus, and we will not talk about them in detail. You can thank me for that. But in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, what you see is a God who is very concerned about prescribing how He is worshipped. And I have to ask, do we have a different God today?

We do have a new covenant today. I don't want to argue that with anyone. We're under a new covenant. But has God fundamentally changed from being the God of Exodus and Leviticus, where He prescribes very precisely how He desires to be worshipped by His people, and He asserts His right as the Creator to tell the creature how He wants to be worshipped, how He must be worshipped. The second witness I'd like to call is the testimony of Nadab and Abihu that we find in Leviticus 1-3.

This is so core to the argument. Here it is, 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 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 Aaron held his peace." Now, get what God is saying here. He doesn't say, You're doing something that I prohibited.

You're doing something that I told you not to do. He's saying, which He had not commanded them. So He's not saying, you did what I told you not to do. He's saying, who told you to do that? And He consumes them with fire.

And this is the end of it. That by those who come near God, they must regard Him as holy. And before all the people, he must be glorified. When we bring practices to say, God, I desire to worship you in this way, and it's not prescribed by God, We're saying, God, You're not holy. We're glorifying ourselves.

The Puritans called this kind of worship, will worship. In other words, our wills want to worship you this way. God accept it. Next witness is Jesus when they're talking about hand washing. Why don't your disciples do the hand washings?

And Christ says that they worship in vain because their doctrines were the precepts of men. So you'll find this in Mark 7, 6 and 7. Your doctrines are the precepts of men. And verse 7 says this, And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Not my commandments, they're the commandments of men.

In 2 Kings, we find a remarkable story. 2 Kings. And it's about King Ahaz. He goes on a diplomatic trip to Assyria. He's amazed by an altar that they have to their false gods.

So he sends back. He has the high priest come take the measurements on this altar and says, I want one of these altars. We need to include this in our worship. So they go back. What do they do?

Do they kick the regular altar? Do they throw it out of the temple and get rid of it? No. Just push it off into a corner. Go look at this.

Go look at this sometimes. 2 Kings 16, 10-18. 2 Kings 16, 10-18. He finds a bigger, better altar. It's a bigger, better altar and he wants to use it.

But, now he's not going to be so bold to just throw out the altar prescribed by God. He'll just push it over into the corner. This is what happens when we adopt practices that God has not given us. We won't be so bold as to say, Well, we're throwing preaching completely out of the worship of God. We'll just push it over into the corner.

Adding always displaces. Don't you understand that? Adding always displaces. It takes time. It takes resources.

It takes energy that were to be focused on the practices that God gave us. And it pushes them off to the side. And we've put in its place something that we think is a better idea. Here's what Jim Elliot, a missionary martyr from our lifetime, said, and it's so profound, he says, the pivot point hangs on whether or not God has revealed a universal pattern for the church in the New Testament. If He has not, then anything will do so long as it works.

But I am convinced that nothing so dear to the heart of Christ as His bride should be left without explicit instructions as to her corporate conduct. I am further convinced that the 20th century has in no way simulated this pattern in its method of churching a community. It is incumbent upon me, if God has a pattern for the church, to find and establish that pattern at all costs. Brothers and sisters, this is what we must decide. Has God given the church a universal pattern?

And if He has, then it is incumbent upon us to find and establish that pattern at all costs. Let's pray. Oh God, help us to discern, help us to discern, if you have given your church a universal pattern. And God, if you show us that it has, and God I believe you have, God I pray that you would help us to find it and to establish it at all costs, that there would be no cows too sacred in the life of our church, to conform our patterns to whatever we find in Your Word. I pray that you