54a) Introductory Perspectives on Public Worship #1

The point: Recognize public worship as an institution of God himself to give it due and careful consideration.

Martin quotes James Bannerman's 'The Church of Christ' to support the idea that the duty of public worship is rooted in the law of nature, as man's social being is formed for God's glory.

A kind of convenient and helpful expedient. But they have little or no appreciation of the fact that it is an institution of God himself. And it is my conviction that you and I will not be prepared to give this subject its due and careful consideration until we see public worship as that which comes to us as an institution of God himself. Now in his classic work on the Church of the Apostles, Now in his classic work on the Church of the Apostles, The Church of Christ, James Bannerman suggests on page 324 of volume 1 that the foundation for the duty of public worship lies in the law of nature i...

5:58 - 7:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize public worship as an institution of God himself to give it due and careful consideration.

Martin quotes John Owen's Catechism on the Worship of God, where Owen states that the knowledge of God's desire to be worshipped is a 'principal branch of the law of our creation written in our hearts,' reinforcing the natural law basis for worship.

is the proper expression towards God of man's social nature. The very law and light of nature tell us that the public worship of God is a standing and permanent ordinance for the whole human race. Now that conviction, that general revelation dictates the public worship of God, is not something shared uniquely by Bannerman. It's very interesting that in Owen's Catechism on the Worship of God, volume 15, page 448, he asks the question, By what means do we come to know that God will thus be worshipped? that God is to be worshipped, and that, according to his own will and appointment, is a princip...

7:19 - 8:31 Read in full sermon

The point: Recognize public worship as an institution of God himself to give it due and careful consideration.

Martin uses the example of pagans worshipping their gods corporately, even in fetishism, to illustrate that the social nature of worship is rooted in the law of nature itself.

But the ways and means of that worship depend merely on God's sovereign pleasure and institution. And then he explicates his answer, and he says, These two things all men saw by nature. First, that God, however they mistook in their apprehensions of him, would be and was to be worshipped with some outward solemn worship, so that although some were reported to have even cast off all knowledge and sense of the divine being, yet never any were heard of that came to an acknowledgement of any God, true or false, but they all consented that he was constantly and solemnly to be worshipped, and that n...

8:31 - 9:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Guard against introducing anything into the solemn, sacred, divinely revealed patterns of God's worship for which there is no explicit command.

Martin quotes Jeremiah Burroughs' 'Gospel Worship' to explain that God expected Nadab and Abihu to deduce His inflexible will regarding fire from His actions, even without an explicit command, highlighting the seriousness of unauthorized worship.

Verse 28. And David sent fire upon his altar. There is nothing and I found no commentator that says there is any allusion to some explicit revelation that by sending his own fire from heaven and causing that fire to continually burn upon the altar that God explicitly said and you shall introduce no other fire. As Jeremiah Burroughs points out in his book Gospel Worship based on this passage God expected them to deduce from His action His inflexible will.

20:17 - 20:48 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin argues that the New Covenant community had a special day for corporate worship, evidenced by 'throwaway' passages like 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 and Acts 20:7, and the…

Martin uses Jack Seton's phrase 'God's little throwaways' to describe seemingly minor biblical directives that nonetheless contain a wealth of truth, specifically regarding the New Covenant's special day for corporate worship.

It's what our good friend Jack Seton. Calls God's little throwaways. Sometimes there's a wealth of truth. In God's little throwaways.

43:45 - 43:52 Read in full sermon