How does God want to be worshiped? This seemingly simple question is one of the most important that any person can ask. The historic Reformed position has been known as the regulative principle of worship, which is essentially the concept that God and God alone is the one who determines what is appropriate in worship and what kind of worship he will receive. God determines how he will be worshiped and man has no right to add anything of his own invention to it. The Old Testament is replete with examples of God regulating the worship practices of his people and is foundational to understanding the regulative principle.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Joe Moorcraft with the message the Regulative Principle of Worship in the Old Testament. Good to see everybody and It's also good to be on this side of the Ohio River because we're still south of the Mason-Dixon line. These two talks I'm going to give this morning and this afternoon on the sufficiency of scripture as it relates to worship in the Old Testament now and in the New Testament this afternoon are largely based on this book that I wrote called how God wants us to worship him on the sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to worship vision form sells this so if you'd like a copy I don't think they brought any but I'm sure they would order one for you. How God wants us to worship Him. Let's begin with prayer.

Father, we do thank you for bringing us here today for all of these people, from all these different places. We thank you for what you're doing in their lives. And we pray that you would do more within us today and this whole weekend while we're here. For Christ's sake, Amen. The sufficiency of Scripture as it relates to the worship of God.

Before I look at that subject in particular, I want to read something from John Calvin as to why worship is so important. Now, when I first read this quote a few months back I was sort of shocked by it and I didn't really think that Calvin would say what he said but the more I think about it the more I think he's exactly right. He's talking about what are the most important basic fundamentals of the Christian faith. Now let me read him to you. He said, If it be inquired then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintain its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts and consequently the whole substance of Christianity.

In other words, he says, I'm going to give you two principles now that are not only the two most important principles of Christianity but in these two principles all of Christianity is summarized now what would the two principles be that you and I would say? Here's what he said first a knowledge of the manner in which God is duly worshipped and secondly of the source from which salvation is to be obtained. When these are kept out of view, though we may glory in the name of Christians, our profession is empty and vain. After these come the sacraments and the government of the church." Now that sort of shocked me. He said, here's the four most important principles of the Christian faith.

How God is to be worshiped, how salvation is accomplished and applied, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the government of the church, how you organize the church. And he said, those first two principles, how God is to be worshiped and how we're to be saved, comprehend the substance of Christianity. Now what's amazing to me is the order in which he listed those two principles. Some of us might have put how to be saved as the number one principle of the Christian faith. Calvin said there's something even more important than learning how God accomplished our salvation.

And he said that is to know how God wants us to worship Him. Because we were created to worship God. That's the reason for our existence. We were saved by the Lord Jesus Christ to worship God. That was why he shed his precious blood on the cross and send his Holy Spirit into our lives that we might be in a position again to worship God in spirit and in truth.

And so you see from our historic reform perspective, the worship of God, most particularly congregational worship, is the number one priority of the Christian faith. Now, what's the relationship of the Bible to the way we worship God? I'm going to read several Bible texts for you. I hope you brought your Bible to look at them with me. And the first one is just one verse at the conclusion of Deuteronomy 12.

Deuteronomy 12, the whole chapter is about worship. It's God's laws for Old Testament Israel on how God is to be worshipped not only at the tabernacle but how God is to be worshipped in the homes throughout all the land of Canaan and after giving all of these various rules he summarizes everything in verse 32 by saying, Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to nor take away from it. In other words, everything that you and I need to know as to how to worship God is contained in the scriptures And we don't need any additions or subtract subtract subtractions. Whatever I command you you shall be careful to do Now let me put that in Southern for you.

Just do what I tell you is what God says to us. When it comes to worshiping him, just do what I tell you. Don't add to, don't take away from. Now let's look, one of the great events in my life that changed my thinking and my ministry and my preaching and My overall worldview was when I first realized the difference between the first and second commandments Now you don't have to admit if you agreed with me because it's sort of embarrassing But when I read the first commandment that said you shall have no other gods before me. And the second commandment that said, don't make any graven images.

For most of my life, I thought sounds like the same thing to me. I mean, I'm not going to bring that up and I'm not going to say it in public, but it sounds to me like the first two commandments mean exactly the same thing. In different words, don't worship anybody but me says the Lord, and don't have any graven images and worship me by them. But then I realized the difference and that made all the difference in the world in my life. The first commandment means worship and serve God alone, God's way alone.

That you cannot worship God no matter how sincerely you try unless you worship God in the way he has prescribed in Holy Scripture. That you cannot reach, not just worship, but you cannot reach God's goals without using God's strategies. And God's methods of reaching those goals. That's the relationship of the first and second commandment. And in the first and second commandment, we have our doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture for the worship of God.

Don't worship God by anything man-made. No matter how close it makes you feel to God, it doesn't put you close to God because God will not be worshiped by ways and manners and rites and rituals that he did not prescribe in his word. All of those he views as graven images. Now let's look at some of the incidences in the Old Testament that teach us just how seriously God takes this idea that everything we need to know to worship God we have in the Bible and we don't need to add to or take away from it. I want to read first of all what I think is one of the most shocking passages in all the scripture.

And if you've never read Leviticus 10, the first few verses, then you better hold on while I'm reading them. Leviticus chapter 10, and let's start reading with verse 1. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective fire pans and after putting fire in them placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord which he had not commanded them and fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them and they died before the Lord then Moses said to Aaron it is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. And before all the people I will be honored. So Aaron therefore kept silent.

Now get the picture. Nadab and Abihu are spanking new priests. This is some of the first rituals they ever had the authority to officiate in. And they've done everything God said when you worship me at the tabernacle, here's how the tabernacle has to be made. Here's how the furniture has to be made.

Here's what the literature must be. God gave a blueprint for all these things. And if you were in Nadab and Abihu's shoes, who were the sons of Aaron, I mean, this was a spiritual high for you. This was a mountaintop experience. You were leading the covenant people of God in worship as ordained priests for the first time in your life.

And they're going by the rules. But right in the midst of the rules, for some reason or another, they get excited and they add some little innovation. And all we know is they offered strange fire. What they did, I have no idea. There's all kinds of debate as to what this thing was that they did, but the important thing is whatever they did in that worship that day, God had not commanded them to do it.

There was no rule from God, there was no command from God to do this in his worship. And it was just a little thing. What anything big? I mean, they had fire pans and they offered incense and there was something unusual about the fire that they had in their fire pans and that God, they did it in a way that God hadn't commanded them to do it. They didn't disobey God.

They just sort of added to it a little bit. And all of a sudden, God sent fire out of heaven and burn them up on the spot. Now you say, well, God, that's just a little bit overkill. Don't you think? Just a little bit over.

I mean, these guys were sincere. This was a mountaintop experience. These were godly men. You burned him up for adding some little thing that you didn't command. Well, if you think that God burned these men up, that that was overkill on God's part, it says more about you than it does the living God.

God takes his worship seriously and will only be worshiped in the way he has commanded. And Moses understood that. And even though these were Aaron's sons, I mean, can you imagine him watching what was going on as the high priest? Moses said, here's why God did this Aaron. Because he said, by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy.

And before all the people, I will be honored. My word is supreme. My word is above all and I will not tolerate man adding his innovations and his rights to worship to my superior word. These men were leaders. If I let this go, then the people will want to add to or take away from my word in their everyday life.

And that's why they had to die. I will be honored. And so God destroyed these two men because they dared to add to what God commanded for worship. Something that they thought would be good and acceptable and right, but which originated with them. They forgot the second commandment that God will be worshipped only in the way he has commanded in the Bible.

Now turn with me to Numbers chapter 20. And here is another troubling passage in the Bible. The children of Israel are en route from Egypt and Mount Sinai where they received the law of God after going through the Red Sea. They're on their way now to Canaan, the promised land. Moses is their great leader, the most important man in the Old Testament, the mediator of the Old Covenant of the Old Testament, a godly man.

Moses has had to put up with a great deal from Israel because they're always complaining. They would rather have the security of slavery than the risks and responsibilities of freedom. And so they were always complaining about how rough it was out here in the wilderness and how much they would rather have the leeks and onions of slavery than the manna and quails of the wilderness. And they thought Moses wasn't taking good care of him. Well, let me read you this story.

Numbers 20 verse one. Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zen in the first month, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there, And there was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke saying, If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord. Why Then have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die here?

And why have you made us come up from Egypt to bring us into this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink." Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Take the rod, which was a symbol of God-ordained government that he'd given Moses. Take the rod and you and your brother Aaron, assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock, and let the congregation and their beasts drink." So Moses took the rod from before the Lord just as he had commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock, and he said to them, Listen now you rebels, shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock? Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and water, miraculously, came forth abundantly and the congregation and the beast drank. There's a great expression of the grace and mercy of God, the undeserving people. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you have not believed me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." What? I mean, Moses had faithfully led the children of Israel, received the law of God, rebuked them for the golden calf affair, and they never appreciated his leadership nor his godliness.

They are complaining about not having enough water to drink, so God says, Moses, take this rod, which is a symbol of authority, and go over to that rock and speak to the rock and say, Water, come forth. Moses did that. He hit the rock a couple of times and spoke and miraculously water came forth for these rebels and these ungrateful people to the point that they were satisfied. And then after this miracle, God comes to Moses and says, Moses, because of your unbelief and disobedience, you will not be able to enter the land of Canaan what in the world did Moses do that was so bad after all this of leading the exodus of all this. What did he do that day?

That made God say to him, Moses, I have to punish you for your unbelief and you will die and not lead these people into the land of Canaan. Did you see what he did? God's command to Moses was, take this rod, it's a symbol of the authority that I've given you. Go to this rock and speak to the rock and tell it in my name for water to come forth. Moses goes to the rock, takes the rod, strikes it twice, speaks to the rock, water comes forth miraculously.

God didn't say anything about hitting the rock. It worked before for Moses. Earlier he had done it and used his rod and struck a rock, but God didn't tell him to strike the rock. That was an adding to the commandment of God. And God was so insulted by the mediator of the old covenant, adding to his word, striking the rock when all God said was, speak to the rock that God said to him, because you have not believed in me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel.

Therefore, you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." Was that overkill on God's part? Was he overly severe? No. God will be treated as holy. And he is highly insulted whenever we try to add to his word rather than just obeying what he has spoken.

Now let me give you to one that's even more difficult. Turn to Jeremiah 7. This is a difficult one, but it has to do with worship. And it has to do with the sufficiency of scripture with worship, that God may be worshiped only in the way he's commanded and not by any graven images or any other innovations made by man, by adding to his word or by taking away. Alright, now this is going to be rough.

I'm warning you ahead of time. Jeremiah chapter 7 verse 21 to the end of the chapter. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I did not speak to your fathers or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you will walk in all the way which I command you that it may be well with you." Yet they did not obey or incline their ear but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart and went backward and not forward.

Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did evil more than their fathers. And you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. And you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

And you shall say to them, This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God or accept correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. Cut off your hair and cast it away and take up a lamentation on the bare heights for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house which is called by my name to defile it.

Here it is. And they have built the high places of Tophith, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire which I did not command. And it did not come into my mind, " says the Lord. Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the slaughter, for they will bury in Tophith because there is no other place. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth, and no one will frighten them away.

Then I will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness and the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land will become a ruin." God says, I'm going to wipe out the whole nation. I'm going to empty the land of people and of joy. And it's going to be a wretched place. Because among the sins that you're committing in your idolatrous life of worshiping the God of the Canaanites, In their worship, you are actually taking your little children and offering them to death in fiery sacrifices, which I did not command you to do. I didn't even think of it, says the Lord.

Now, that's not the way we think. That's not exactly what we would say. In God's sight, worshipping him in ways he has not commanded is at least as heinous at murdering children in fiery sacrifices. He was angry that they were murdering their children and offering them to false gods. But he was angry because they were doing things in worship he had not commanded them to do.

One man named William Young says this, listen, man would revolt at the unnatural and inhumane cruelty of the burning of the fruit of one's own body before an idol. But in God's mind, this is but secondary, the essential evil being that it is worship, which he did not command, nor came it into his heart. You see This priority on worship that we find in the scriptures is something far higher than most of us have felt in our lives. We felt it's important to worship God, but surely abortion is worse. Surely abortion is worse than murdering your children is worse than innovating in the worship of God in ways He has not commanded.

That may be your opinion, but that is not God's opinion. As heinous as abortion is in God's sight as murder, deserving capital punishment, He brought capital punishment upon a whole nation because they dared to add to their worship something he had not commanded. One of the important things about the sufficiency of scripture and the reason for our emphasis on it and the Old Testament's emphasis on it, we're going to talk about the New Testament emphasis this afternoon, is that sufficiency of scripture protects us from superstition. That you and I cannot avoid superstition in the worship of God if we don't believe that everything we need to know to worship God is contained in the Scriptures. Now what am I getting at?

Well, if you turn to Isaiah chapter one and verse 11, God is rebuking Israel pretty severely For though they're going through the right motions, their worship he hates. Actually says I hate your worship. I hate your new moons. But notice what he says in Isaiah 1-11. What are your multiplied sacrifices to me, says the Lord.

I have had enough of your burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? So in that one verse, you see the two forms of superstition that not only Israel was guilty of, but we're guilty of today. The first form is to worship God correctly according to his word without repented hearts.

And that's why God said to them, you're doing all the right things in the worship. You believe the regular principle of worship now. You're doing what I've commanded in your worship. You're offering me sacrifices and I hate your correctness of worship because you think you're going to be blessed by going through the right motions when your heart's not in it. When your heart's far away from me and you superstitiously believe that some way you're going to draw out for me a blessing just by going through the right motions.

That's the first form of superstition. You ever done that? You ever put money in the offering plate, taken the Lord's Supper, going to church because you thought some way God's going to bless you because of it and your heart was at the Super Bowl, or it was at your burnt roast in the oven. Now, you know what the second form of superstition is today? As the end.

He said, who commanded you? Who required this trampling of my courts from you? I didn't require it. You're doing things I didn't require you to do. I didn't command you to do.

So the second form of superstition is to worship God in ways and means and rights that we have invented, but which God hadn't commanded, thinking and sure that God is going to bless us for doing those things. Many of us go to church and we do things in the worship of God that we haven't even thought about is this biblical or not. It's made us feel close to God, whether it's brought us close to God or not is another issue. We've been doing this in our church for generations. We can't even think of not doing these things.

Surely God's going to bless us by coming before him and worshipping him in rites and rituals that we've invented, but not which he has commanded. Surely when I come before God and I cross myself and I genuflect, that makes me feel something about the holiness of God in this sanctuary and it makes me feel close to God and Surely God's going to bless me for that reverent feeling I have from crossing myself annealing and genuflecting God says who required this of you Why do you have the audacity to think that I'm going to bless you for coming into my worship and doing things in the worship of me, I have not commanded. See the Bible serious about this thing. When I when we talk about the sufficiency of scripture for worship, what do we mean exactly? Let me, let me say this as clearly as I can.

And I think the best expression of it was written in the 1640s by one of the most important books ever produced by man is on no par with the Bible at all. But it represents biblical Christianity and spurious human expression. And that is the Westminster Confession of Faith and larger and shorter catechisms. And here's what it says in chapter 21, paragraph one. This is what we mean by the regulative principle of worship, the sufficiency of scripture for worship.

It says the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in Holy Scripture. That's the regular principle of worship drawn right from the second commandment. Let me read it again and you think back are you doing anything in your church that goes against the sufficiency of scripture that God has not commanded. Let me read it again. The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself in the Bible, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, innovations or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation.

That is in the worship of God, any kind of graven image, statue, picture, visual aids, symbol, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in Holy Scripture. And then there is an appendix to the directory of worship written by the Westminster Assembly that says this. And this is also a part of the regulatory principle of worship. There is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel, but the Lord's day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued.

Now that's how seriously the English Puritans and the Scottish Covenaners took this doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture as it pertains to worship. God will only be worshiped according to what he is instituted in the Bible. We're limited to whatever he's commanded of us. We may not use any visible forms or representations or symbols that he has not commanded in his word, nor may we set aside as a church any holy day, commemorating any aspect of Christianity, and putting that on par with the ever occurring Lord's Day, the first day of the week. Pretty strong statement, don't you think?

Well, let's summarize it. To put it very simply, we may worship God only in the way He's commanded in the Bible. That's the regulative principle of worship. That's how you determine what do I include in a worship service? What do I do when I worship God?

When our congregation meets, how do I know what we're supposed to do and we're not supposed to do. We're supposed to do whatever God commands of us. Period. Whatever God has commanded us in the Bible to do in his worship, that is what we're to do. That's how sufficient the Bible is.

You don't need to add to it. You most certainly don't want to take away from it. Because everything you need to know to know how to worship God correctly, you have in his holy word. Now let me put it in three principles. Get a pencil and paper and write this down.

This would be good to share with your friends and neighbors and they'll really think you're extreme with this. But let me give you, I mean, they already think you're radical. After all, some of you have 10-15 children. But anyway, let me give you the three. Let me hone this down to three principles that express the sufficiency of scripture pertaining to worship, the regulative principle of worship.

Number one, whatever God has commanded is required. Whatever God has commanded us to do in the worship of God is required. Whatever God has commanded is required. Second, whatever God has forbidden is prohibited. Whatever God has forbidden is prohibited.

That is, whatever God has said in the Bible, don't do this in my worship. You and I may never do it. Here's a third one that separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. And the believers of the sufficiency of scripture from everybody else. Whatever God has not commanded is forbidden.

Whatever God has not commanded to be done in worship is forbidden. Now most of your Christian friends they might agree with you on number one and number two but they have a completely different number three that sounds a lot like your little children when they want to be disobedient. And their third principle is this, whatever is not forbidden is permitted. Whatever is not forbidden in the Bible is permitted. I mean, that's why your children argue sometimes.

They do something you didn't want them to do. And they say, but you didn't say I couldn't do it. And so it's permitted for me to do. Well, that's the way most Christians worship. If you look at There's all kinds of worship in this country, our alleged worship.

And think of all the things that are done in worship services that nowhere in the Bible have been commanded by God. And people say, well, God didn't say we couldn't do it. Nowhere in the Bible does God say thou shalt not genuflect. So what's wrong with genuflecting and crossing yourself when you come into church? I performed a wedding one time at a great big Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia And I figured it was a good Protestant church.

And so after the wedding was performed, I mean the other preacher was there with all those little, pretty little things, scarves and gowns and all those funny things. And I was dressed in my business suit. And after we pronounced him man and wife, and I was standing by there by this guy, all of a sudden he reached up his hands and he crossed the whole congregation. I mean, I shut my eyes. I scooted over just a little.

I mean, that's the first method of first wedding I've ever had in the Catholic Methodist Church So what God doesn't say anywhere don't cross yourself I Mean in your church Maybe you get up in the middle of the service and you go around and you welcome everybody and you shake everybody's hand, you sing the first hymn, second hymn and then there's a prayer and then there's a time to go around and shake everybody's hand. Well, God didn't say you couldn't do it. All right, let's go with a sticky one. I'm leaving town tomorrow, so you can't fire me. So many churches at the end of their service, they have an altar call and they ask people to come forward to be saved.

Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say, thou shalt have an altar call at the end of the service. But God didn't say you couldn't do it. Some churches have as a part of their service, the raising of the Christian flag. I don't even know who made it, of the Christian flag and then they have some little salutation that they give to the Christian flag. God didn't say we couldn't do it and it just sort of feels so spiritual to do it.

So if God hadn't forbidden it, we couldn't do it. What is that? That's an adding to the word of God. Why is the biblical principle, if it's not commanded, it's forbidden, the one we want to hold to. Because we don't want to add to the word of God.

We may not disobey the word of God. We may not subtract from it. But we may not add to it either. And therefore, if we're doing something in the worship of God that God has not commanded in His word, we are adding to that word, whether it's saluting the Christian flag, whether it is an altar column, by the way. Protestant churches don't have altars.

The last altar was on Calvary. What do you do on altars? You have sacrifices. The last altar, the only altar we need is Golgotha. You got a communion table is what you got here.

But you don't have an altar. But that's another story. Closely related, however. So you see the point I'm getting is, this thing of the sufficiency of Scripture as it pertains to worship is a razor's edge. So many things are added to the worship of God today that have made somewhere along the line, somebody feel good.

Somebody thought it was a good symbol. Somebody thought along the way that it was a reverential act toward God. Somebody thought along the way that, well, they've been doing this throughout the centuries and this is something that would tie us with the continuity of the church through the centuries. Whatever the reason, just do what I tell you, says the Lord, and don't add to and don't take away from. So the three principles, whatever God commands in the scripture is required.

Whatever God has forbidden is prohibited. And whatever is not commanded is forbidden. Now, how does God command us to do something in Scripture? That's important because sometimes, because Christians have a faulty hermeneutic, we misunderstand it. Now what's hermeneutic?

Sounds like a liver disease, but hermeneutics means principles of biblical interpretation. That is principles you get from the Bible as to how you are to read the Bible. And most people don't have any set of biblical principles of interpretation. But when it comes to under, and that's another subject too. If you want a book on how to read the Bible biblically, I have one if you call my office, we'll send it to you free of charge.

How to read the Bible biblically. But for many people when you when they hear something new for the first time, particularly if they've gone to churches that have been unfamiliar with the Reformed faith. And here you've been reading all these great vision form things and various other uh... Reform books and you're coming into the reform faith and and you have so many wonderful things you want to teach him and show them and they come to you and they say I'm not gonna believe unless you give me a chapter verse chapter verse chapter verse but you say but what a chapter verse you don't give me a chapter verse, I'm not going to believe it's not a Bible. Well, that's a faulty hermeneutic.

Because express statements is only one way by which the Word of God gets its message to us. Let me tell you what I mean. How does God command us in the Bible to do something? Well, many times by expressed statements. Thou shalt do this.

But there's another way that the Bible, that God commands us to do things in the Bible. And that is by honest deductions, honest deductions, inferences. And do you know that most of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith are not based on Christian, or many of them are not based on chapter verse, but on inescapable, honest inferences and deductions from the Word of God? Can anybody give me a chapter verse that says, God is one God in essence, and He exists simultaneously in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is no single verse in the Bible that says that.

But the Bible most certainly does teach it, right? I mean I trust we are all Trinitarians here. That the Bible most certainly does teach us that there is only one God and that one God exists simultaneously in three persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the same in essence, equal in power and glory. Well how do we come up with that?

Here's how. The Bible tells us that Jesus is God. It tells us the Holy Spirit is God. It tells us that God is also the Father. The Bible also makes distinctions between God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

God the Son sometimes speaks to God the Father. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit sometimes command the Holy Spirit. So when you put all these verses together, the inescapable conclusion is there is only one God. And that God exists in three persons. So that's the second way we understand what God commands us to do.

Number one, express statements, thou shalt do this or not do that. Secondly, by honest inferences and deductions from Scripture. And number three, by approved examples. That is, you go to the book of Acts and not everything the apostles did are models for us. And we have to do our homework and we have to study the particular incident that we're looking at in the book of Acts.

But the apostles, says Ephesians, were the foundations of the church along with the prophets, Christ being the chief cornerstone. They were not the foundation of the church as persons, but as vehicles of revelation. And so what they did and spoke while they were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is authoritative in the life of the church. So you go through the book of Acts. I wish we had time to do that.

Go through the book of Acts like Acts 15. And we say not only what are the expressed statements of the apostles concerning the worship and government of the church in the book of Acts, but what did they do? Is there anything they did that can be used as a model, an example, an approved example for us imitating and practicing in our church. For instance, beginning with the day Jesus raised from the dead, in the book of Acts, every Sunday, the apostles would gather together with the people of God to worship. Not Saturdays, every Sundays.

Not only that, there were certain things throughout the book of Acts that they did every Sunday. When they gathered together for worship, They sang psalms, they had the preaching and reading of the Word of God, they took up collections for the poor, etc. Sacraments too. So those are the three ways that we find out what God has commanded us to do in the worship of God. Because in the worship of God, we may only do what He's commanded.

Is there an express statement somewhere in the Bible where it says, God says do this? Is there some honest inference and deduction we can draw from a series of principles in the Scriptures. And number three, are there any approved examples in the life of apostles that we're supposed to imitate in our lives today? Now, what are those elements that the Bible commanded? I mean, can we list them?

Yes. If you go through the scriptures, you can identify how God has commanded us to worship Him. And what is to be included in the worship of God? Everything else is to be excluded. It's a razor's edge.

So let me list for you the elements that God commands us to do in the worship of God. Several of these are obvious. First of all, prayer. That prayer is commanded by God, not only to be done in your homes and in your families and by yourself, but it is also a very crucial part of the worship of God. And in one sense, the whole worship service itself is one extended prayer before God.

The second is the reading of the Bible. The reading of the Bible is a separate act in worship apart from preaching of the Bible. Now they're obviously connected But it's amazing how churches today, how over the past 100 or so years, how churches have gradually departed from expository preaching. That the preacher reads a text from the scripture and then that's a diving board. And he jumps off that text and says whatever he wants to say thereafter and who knows what.

I'll tell you one time I was at a church in Texas, Presbyterian Church. And I'm Presbyterian so I can throw rocks, big old rocks. And I was in a Presbyterian church. My daddy lived in that town. And I had a sneak in 10 minutes already.

I hate these signs that they hold up. But I knew it wasn't going to be that great. So I go already with a bad attitude to worship on Sunday. I'm insulted as soon as we get in the door. As soon as I open the door, the ushers hand all these little children, eight years old and under a bag of toys so they could have something to play with during church.

So I'm mad now. And I'll sit there and in a few minutes, the preacher starts preaching and I ask for a bag of toys. So that evening I thought, well, forget the Presbyterians, at least they read the Bible in Southern Baptist churches. So I decided we were going to a Southern Baptist Church that evening. First Southern Baptist Church of this town.

I sit down. Surely they're going to preach the gospel on Sunday night. I sit down and there was a big movie screen and the movie came on and there was Hoopy Goldberg in that none musical. What's it called? Sister Habits, something like that.

Anyway, and so she's singing, bopping around on the stage. She's singing an upbeat hymn. And the preacher's over here crying his eyes out. And he puts a computer on pause and he says, this is the kind of worship we need. This is the kind of singing that needs to take place in our church.

Whoopi was singing Ave Maria. She was singing a hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary in this Southern Baptist Church. I wanted another bag of toys. So you see, this is a very, very important issue. And you see it in the architecture and decor of churches.

In a lot of Presbyterian churches, they have what's called a divided chancellery. And over here, or one side, over here is a small little pulpit where they do the announcements and lead the singing and read the Bible. And over here is a great big pulpit where they preach. Now that's real symbolic, isn't it? Read the Bible over here in this little pulpit and preach over here in this big pulpit.

You know what in the history of the Reformation, particularly in English Puritanism and Scottish Covenanter religion and New England Puritanism. You know that the very architecture and decor of a sanctuary illustrated the sufficiency of God for worship. You come into a room where there are, it's not necessarily austere. It may be done very beautifully. There are no visual symbols.

There are no statues. There are no pictures. Somebody asked me one time what I thought a picture of Jesus. And I said, well, I've never seen one. And here is the, here is the room.

And the highest and central thing in the room is a pulpit. Underneath the pulpit is a communion table because the communion has no power and authority apart from the preaching of the Word of God. Everything in that sanctuary is focused on and governed by the Word of God that's read in that pulpit and preached. So you have the reading of the Bible as an act of worship. Now, you as many times preachers rob their people of the Word of God.

They have a text that's about two verses long, and that's all they read of Scripture. Well, the reading of the Bible is a central part of worship. God commands us to read the Bible to our people, and not just a little piece here and there. Another thing that he has commanded is the preaching of the Bible. Only the Bible and all of the Bible.

And then of course, another thing is the administering of the two sacraments of baptism of the Lord's Supper. Another ordinance that God has commanded for worship is the singing of his praises. Another thing he has commanded is the giving of tithes and offerings in the worship of God. And another commanded ordinance is the taking of oaths and vows in God's presence in congregational worship. Also, he commands us in congregational worship to confess our faith, what we believe as Christians.

We use the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, things from the Westminster Confession of Faith, only if they're biblical. Then there is the pronouncing of the benediction as a part of the conclusion of the worship. Church discipline is also to be exercised not only in private, but sometimes when there's public sins require public excommunication. Church discipline is to be administered in the congregational worship, according to the Bible. Congregations saying, Amen.

Go through the Psalms. You see example after example of the congregation saying, Amen. And then also, God commands us on occasion to fast. He commands us on occasions as a church to have days of thanksgiving, but no other holy days. And brothers and sisters, That is it.

That's all God has commanded you to do. And you may only do what he commands. Prayer, reading the Bible, preaching the Bible, administration of the sacraments, of baptism of the Lord's Supper, singing God's praises, giving of tithes and offerings, taking of oaths and vows, confessing the faith, pronouncing and receiving the benediction, exercising church discipline, saying the congregational amen, fasting, days of thanksgiving, No adding to nor take away from. Now in conclusion, let me ask you a couple of questions and answer them. I've listed to you the what?

12, 13. So elements of worship that God has commanded us. Does your church do all those things in the worship of God? Whatever God has commanded is required. Whatever God has not commanded is forbidden.

Whatever God has forbidden is prohibited. Make sure your church does all these things that God commands you to do with hearts that are in love with him. But let me ask you another question. Can you think, now think hard. Can you think of anything else we ought to do in worship beside these 12 or 13 things?

Can you think of anything else? Can you think of anything God left out that He should have commanded us to do in worship. Do you think that just maybe God has forgotten to mention some innovation, some right and ritual in worship that he would like for you to add. To ask these questions is to answer them. To answer them in the affirmative would be blasphemous, for it would dishonor the wisdom and sovereignty of God and deny the sufficiency of Scripture and exalt the opinion and the tradition of man, which is the exact opposite of what God is doing in our world today, according to Isaiah 2.

The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of man will be abased. And the Lord alone will be exalted on that day before the terror of the Lord and the splendor of His majesty. Therefore, stop regarding man whose breath of life is in his nostrils. Why should man be esteemed? The Reformation of America begins with the Reformation of the Church because the spiritual condition of the Church determines the political and economic and moral and social condition of the nation in which that church exists.

And the reformation of the church must begin with what Calvin said is the fundamental summarizing principle of Christianity, the mode in which God is to be worshipped. In your area, log on to our website ncfic.org. You