Recovery of Biblical Worship

Introduction: Our Vision for These Days and the Recovery of Biblical Worship

0:02 Now I believe that most of you, if not all of you, are aware that the subject announced for the ministry of this evening hour is our vision for these days. In October of 1988, this was the subject announced for the Monday evening session in that particular pastor's conference, and since then, five additional installments on that theme have been preached on the Monday night of the conference. One of the years, we had visiting speakers for both of those evenings, and so the series was temporarily interrupted. And each time, I have begun by making several basic assertions. First, a word of explanation, and then a word of disclaimer. And since we do have a number of new men in the conference, and perhaps people visiting with us who have not been present for the previous installments of this series entitled, Our Vision for These Days, let me repeat that...

1:17 That word of explanation and that word of disclaimer. By the terms, our vision for these days, we are merely seeking to express what is our perception of some of the most critical areas of need for the people of God in the day in which we live, and in the context in which these men present at the conference are called upon. We are seeking to carry out a ministry marked by biblical integrity. We are seeking in a real sense to apply the principles embodied in a text such as 1 Chronicles 12.32, where the sacred writer tells us concerning the men of Issachar that they had understanding of the times that Israel might know what she ought to do. This sometimes seems like a dramatic invasion of reason. Or a text such as Ephesians 5, in which we are told to not be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

2:30 And, so, none of us has had an angelic visitation and a vision in the strict sense of the term. But we use it in the looser sense of our perception with reference to the crucial issues that need mortifying in our places, events, and in our lives. Or we use our vision of the Gospel as a того to되a on the day and then with our minds not macking up apostolic districts. Or the등еч that then we leave in this text as futuro sided methodic evidence that crime im앙 olmeca David prefer social issues rather than being be Winior or The veritable process in the gegenway is even escrever by ihtal tradum, Quadru tends to look to crucial issues that need to be addressed in our generation.

2:51 And then by way of a word of disclaimer, we claim no extraordinary commission with respect to our vision for these days, nor do we claim an exclusive commission. In other words, these are matters that we trust are the concern of all who seek with spiritual discernment to give themselves to a ministry that answers to the needs of our day. And we are thankful to God for the increasing number of men and churches of which we become aware, where these concerns that we share and seek to convey are the burning concerns of their ministries as well. In the previous messages, I've sought to articulate our vision for these days in terms of a recovery of the biblical gospel, a renewal of biblical holiness, a return to biblical churchmanship, a restoration of biblical preaching, a recognition of the watchman identity and function of the pastoral office, and then last, a restoration of the watchman identity and function of the pastoral office, and then last,

4:14 October, a return to domestic piety or the reestablishment of godly family life. Now, these messages are all available on tape as a ministry of the church and available in the Trinity bookstore, and perhaps some of you may wish to obtain them and prayerfully consider these major areas of concern. Now, tonight, our subject is our vision for these days, a recovery of biblical worship. Our vision for these days in terms of a passionate concern to see a recovery of biblical worship. Now, in taking up so vast and crucial a subject as biblical worship, I am doing so with a very limited field of focus, namely, the public worship of the gathered people of God in their seasons of stated gathering for such worship. I state this fact at the outset because I'm fully aware that the biblical doctrine of worship is both exceeding broad and deep, and in bypassing many other crucial aspects

5:41 of the more comprehensive biblical doctrine of worship, I have no intention in so doing of demeaning those other aspects, nor do I consider them matters of little importance or unworthy of extensive and careful instruction from the scriptures. However, I do believe it is accurate to state that nothing will be more influential in shaping the other forces of the church, in shaping the other forces of the church, than our understanding and experience of our public social worship. Therefore, regarding it as the linchpin or the primary molding influence upon all other facets of worship, it is this aspect that is the peculiar and almost exclusive focus of the ministry. Now, as we attempt to think our way through this vital and vast subject of the recovery of biblical worship, I want you to consider with me, first of all, and this heading will be disproportionately longer than the subsequent headings, and I state that lest some of you get antsy

The Manifestation of God's Concern for the Nature and Purity of His Worship (Old Testament)

7:09 knowing that several more are to come. We consider, first of all, the manifestation, the manifestation of God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship. The manifestation of God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship. It is my purpose under this heading to guide you in a quick overview of some pivotal passages in the Old and the New Testaments which clearly manifest clearly manifest God's great concern for the nature and purity of His worship.

7:53 We might go further and say God's great jealous concern for the nature and purity of His worship. In His well-known work on the biblical doctrine of the church, James Bannerman writes as follows in the opening section in which, in which he is dealing with the public worship of God, these very perceptive words. The sinner has no right to dictate but must submissively learn from God both the conditions and the manner in which God will permit his approach for the purpose even of worshiping Him. The path of approach to God was shut and barred and barred. In consequence of man's sin. It was impossible for man himself to renew the communion which had been so solemnly closed by the judicial sentence which excluded him from the presence and favor of his God.

9:06 Could that path ever again be opened up and the communion of God with man and of man with God ever again be renewed? This was a question for God alone to determine. If it could, on what terms was the renewal of communion to take place? And in what manner was the fellowship of the creature with his Creator again to be maintained?

9:38 This too was a question no less than the former for God to resolve. The sinner could not from the very nature of the case presume to dictate to God either the conditions on which his communion with God ought to be once more allowed or the manner in which it might rightly and properly be continued. These were questions which could only be determined by a regard to the principles of God's more moral government and which none but God was competent to decide. Public worship is no other than the manner and the way in which sinners associated together in a church fellowship are permitted in their collective capacity to hold communion with God, to maintain in a rightful, right and befitting way their fellowship with Him, and to approach Him day by day in acceptable communion. The manner of such communion as well as the conditions on which it was possible to renew it at all

11:05 is a matter in regard to which it was the province of God and not of man to dictate. Would God that those words were true, would God that those words were true, would God that those words were true, would God that those words were true, would God that those words were true, would God that those words were understood and taken seriously by the professing Christian church in our generation. And I want to demonstrate by this brief overview of several passages in the Old and the New Testaments what I am calling the manifestation of God's concern for the nature and purity of His worship. We begin in the first recorded act of social or public worship.

11:48 We begin in the first recorded act of social or public worship. In Genesis chapter 4, verse 1. Genesis chapter 4 and verse 1. And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

12:08 And again she bore his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time, and in process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

12:32 And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. And in the language of Paul Harvey, you know, the rest of the story. Now it's very interesting that in this passage we see first of all public social worship in the form of offerings to God simply appearing in the narrative.

13:06 There is no hint whatsoever in any of the previous material given to us in the book of Genesis as to how or in what manner God made known to Eve and to these two sons that he would be worshipped in conjunction with the offering of substance from the field, either the animal or the vegetable kingdom, unto the living God. It simply appears. But what is very obvious is that though we are given no information as to how it had its first place, its appearance, God is deeply engaged in considering both the person and his offering in these acts of public worship. For we read, as they brought their offerings, verse 4b, the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering. God was engaged in beholding this act of public worship. God was engaged in beholding this act of public worship.

14:20 This visible expression of approaching unto God. And with respect to the one it is said, God had respect to the person and to the offering that was presented. The Lord had respect unto Abel, his person, and to his offering, but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. God did not simply give to a person, God did not simply give to a person, glance over his shoulder and say, well, the older one has brought an offering, and the kid brother has come with his offering, and he brought something, he brought it in some way, so all is well. No, he had respect to the one and his offering, and to the other he had not respect nor to his offering. And the result is that God rejects the one man's person and his offering while accepting the other. And the subsequent narrative tells us that the first violent division in the human race resulting in murder was precipitated by the differing attitudes.

15:42 Attitudes and actions connected with the worship of God. Now, I'm aware of the New Testament commentary upon this event. One was a man of faith. One is called a righteous man. But it's interesting that in the context of the revelation of the faith and the righteousness of the one, and the unbelief and the wickedness of the other, the focal point is upon the faith and the righteousness of the one. And the unbelief and the wickedness of the other, is upon an act of public worship. Surely God is telling us from this first recorded instance of public or social visible worship that he has a deep concern for the nature and the purity of his worship. Then we turn to the book of Leviticus, to that incident with relationship to Nadab and Abihu.

16:43 The two sons of Aaron, God's appointed high priest. Leviticus chapter 10, verses 1 through 3. Leviticus chapter 10, verses 1 through 3. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took each of them his censer and put fire thereon and laid incense thereon and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And there came forth fire from before the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spoke, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people will be glorified. Now according to chapter 9 and verse 24,

17:46 After there had been this formal setting apart of the place that was to be the central gathering for social worship, and there was the offering up of the offerings appointed by God, we read that there came forth fire from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat. And when all the people saw it, they said, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people will be glorified. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. And in a marvelous work on gospel worship by Jeremiah Burroughs, Mr. Burroughs points out that there is no indication that God had given any explicit command that only he had sent should be the fire by which the offerings were to be consumed. There is no record.

18:47 But the record tells us that when they offered what is called strange fire, that is fire that in some way was unauthorized, God showed once more, God did again his great concern for the nature and the purity of his worship by striking the two sons of Aaron dead. And the rationale for that act. The fact is given in the words of Moses in verse 3, this is it that the Lord spoke, saying, I will be sanctified, I will be set apart and duly regarded for who and what I am in them that come nigh me, that is my priests, and before all will be glorified. And God was concerned to preserve the sanctity.

19:52 The sanctity of the activity of the priests and the glory of his own name by making it abundantly clear that he was deeply concerned for the nature and the purity of his worship, even the source of the fire that would consume the sacrifices upon his altar. The third passage or large segment of the portion of the word of God that gives us the manifestation of God's. Concern for the nature and purity of his worship are those large sections in Exodus and in the book of Leviticus, the whole Levitical system. When we pick up these chapters, we find chapter after chapter, paragraph after paragraph, dealing with the specific details of the preparation of this sacrifice and the other sacrifice, this offering and another offering. The preparation of the priest.

20:54 This purification, the garments he was to wear, the activities he was to engage in, whether it was in the ordinary course of priestly activity in the outer segment of the tabernacle or whether the details of the activity of the high priest once a year when he entered the inner sanctuary and that never without blood. When we read these things chapter after chapter. Paragraph after paragraph, surely God is saying in language that cannot be misunderstood, I am deeply concerned for the nature and the purity of my worship. Yes, I know that many of these things are rooted in his jealous concern that the contours that are being brought backward upon the Levitical system from the substantial realities in Christ. Of which these were the shadows. I know that God's jealousy is in conjunction with Christ and the once for all sacrifice that he would make for sin and for the activities of Christ as our great high priest. And I am not in any way negating that dimension of the great and meticulous concern that is shown in the whole Levitical system.

22:22 But surely God is also saying to his. People approaching me is serious business. You don't have little caucuses in your tents in the tribe of Levi or in the tribe of Judah and decide what you would like this month for a little novelty in my worship. And come with your consensus into my courts.

22:47 No, God had clearly prescribed all the details of how he would be reproached by his. People in the place of disappointment. Then there is a fourth line of evidence for the manifestation of God's concern for the nature and purity of his worship. Namely, the strictures of the second commandment, the strictures of the second commandment in Exodus chapter 20 in Exodus chapter 20, the familiar words of the Decalogue God calling his people to.

23:25 Himself amidst unusual and arresting circumstances speaks with his own voice and then writes with his own finger this summary of moral duty and obligation and no sooner does he announce in the first commandment Exodus 23 that he and he alone will be the object of worship and religious devotion. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Me or besides me. But then he says, and in having me as your God, you shall worship me only in the ways of my appointment.

24:08 You shall not make unto you a graven image nor any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or as that is in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down yourself unto them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children upon the third and the fourth generation of them that hate me and showing loving kindness unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Surely the place of this stricture with regard to God's worship that men were not free to worship even the true God. The impulse of their own imagination. As we saw them so quickly doing when they bow down before the golden calf and yet dare to say that that calf represents the God that brought them out of Egypt. God says, no, I am exceedingly jealous for the nature and the purity of my worship.

25:20 And then we add in the fifth place the witness of the prophets. As we saw in the ministry. The word Sunday morning in the adult class from Isaiah 1. God is deeply concerned about the nature and the purity of his worship.

25:36 And that theme that we contemplated Lord's Day morning throbs through the prophetic denunciations and calls to repentance. While the prophets announced the better days of the new covenant. Remember how often those better days are described. In terms of the cultic worship of the Old Testament coming to an expanded dimension and to levels of purity never known before.

26:08 Worship now in which the eunuch would be welcomed into God's courts.

26:15 Surely God is saying throughout the witness of the prophets that he is deeply concerned for the nature and the purity of his worship. But is this the end? Is this only of the Old Testament? Or do we find it spilling over and flowering in the new?

The Manifestation of God's Concern for the Nature and Purity of His Worship (New Testament)

26:36 Well, I ask you to turn with me to John's gospel, the second chapter. As we take this quick overview of these key passages that I am saying are the manifestation of God's concern for the nature and purity of his worship. And in John 2 we have the familiar account so often. And rightly so that it should be so read at weddings.

27:05 And the Lord Jesus who was no social killjoy. No first century scrooge who when he saw people making their way up to a wedding feast with its week long festivities said. Bah humbug upon feasting and upon holy merriment. No, we have the account of the Lord Jesus performing his first public miracle there in Cana of Galilee by turning water into wine.

27:42 Gladdening the hearts of all who were present leaving to their responsibility before God if they abused his good gift of wine. And he left the responsibility at their feet should they have done so. What a picture of our gracious Lord performing a miracle that had to do with people's appetites and enjoyments not for that which was a necessity for their existence but for their joy and adding to their holy and sanctified merriment. Any thought that Christ is in any way a social killjoy. Who would restrict expressions of holy merriment and of sanctified feasting is far into the picture given to us by John. And remember he says although the things that he did it would take the whole world to fill the books. But this selection of these specific things these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God.

28:57 And that believing you might have life through his name. And that first recorded miracle. Is that in which we see this side this dimension of our Lord Jesus. But it's also interesting that the last half of the chapter beginning with verse 13 contains the account of his cleansing of the temple.

29:19 And at the Passover of the Jews was at hand Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves. And the changers of money sitting. And he made a scourge of cords.

29:36 And cast out of the temple both the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the changers money. And overthrew their tables. And to them that sold the doves he said take these things hence.

29:52 Make not my father's house a house of merchandise. And his disciples remembered that it was written. Zeal for thy house. Shall eat me up.

30:07 No man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the father. He has revealed him. He has exegeted him.

30:18 And as our Lord is exegeting the heart of the father. He exegetes him as the God who is celebrated in Psalm 104. Who has a delight and a concern over all of his creatures. And all of his works.

30:36 A beneficent large. God.

30:41 He is also revealed in this very chapter. As the God who has a burning jealousy for the nature and the purity of his worship. And there in that place. The temple.

30:58 The very seat and center of the social public worship of Jehovah. That place in which the appointed priesthood functions. That place in which the mandated and warranted sacrifices were offered. When our Lord Jesus sees that the worship is being prostituted by commercialism.

31:23 What does he do? So often we've become insensitive to the vigor of the language. When he saw what he saw he made a whip of course. And look at the vigorous language.

31:39 Cast out. Put over through and said.

31:46 What he did on the front end of his ministry. He did on the tail end of his ministry as well in that passion week. When he came and cleansed the temple again. And the language of the synoptic writers is even more vigorous where it says.

32:03 And he drove them. The beneficent Christ. Standing often upon her at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. Perceiving the supply of wine is dwindling.

32:18 His mother trying to precipitate something my time is not yet come. And at the appointed hour he makes known his will to the servants and the water pots are filled. They're turned into wine and one can only imagine the Lord Jesus smiling. As he overhears people whispering and nudging one another saying.

32:42 I don't know what's happened at this feast. They've saved the best wine. Till now. They usually start bringing out the cheaper stuff when our taste buds are not as alert and fresh and we've eaten and brought to the full.

32:58 Can you imagine the beneficent son of God standing off in the side with a smile playing off the corners of his mouth delighting in the delight of the wholesome sinless merriment at a wedding feast. Oh. You say that's my Jesus. That's the Jesus with whom I feel so comfortable.

33:23 The gentle. Beneficent. Kind. Jesus.

33:27 Now look at the picture at the end of the chapter. You're a visitor in Jerusalem. You know nothing of what is going on in those days. But as a visiting tourist you want to see this magnificent temple and have some sense of what goes on.

33:44 And you happen to be there this very day when this man enters the temple. And you see someone with burning eyes. And I believe with rippling flesh. And their carpenter shop over thirty years.

34:01 And he has a scourge of cords in his hands. And he goes from one group of animals to another. And he whacks them upon the rump. And the brine lay off.

34:13 And the animals snort. And they scurry hither and yon. And he cuts his scourge under his arm. And he finds the tables filled with wine.

34:21 And the tables filled with various coinage. That is exchanged for offerings to be purchased. And he turns them over. And the coins clank upon the stone floor of the temple.

34:36 You'd say a madman has been let loose in this place. That's the Jesus of the Bible. Who's reflecting the heart of his Father. Which is exceedingly jealous.

34:56 For the nature and the purity of his worship. Zeal for thy house shall eat me up. Is God concerned under the new covenant. With the purity of his worship.

35:14 Our Lord Jesus on the threshold and at the conclusion of his public ministry. Answers the question. By his holy violence. In cleansing the temple.

35:30 And then in that marvelous passage in John chapter 4. In which our Lord is evangelizing an immoral woman. And in the course of evangelizing her. The subject of public worship comes up.

35:48 And the proper place for that public worship enters the discussion. You know the story. And in the course of his interaction with her. The woman says to our Lord in verse 20.

36:03 John 4. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. In this mountain is where we Samaritans. Carry on our stated public worship of God.

36:18 And you say. That is you Jesus. That in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Where the stated social worship of God should be carried on.

36:29 At the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus said unto her woman. Believe me. The hour comes when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

36:41 Shall stated public worship of any kind be a matter of concern. No that is not what he says. He says when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Shall ye worship the Father.

36:57 You worship that which you know not. We worship that which we know. For salvation is from the Jews. But the hour comes and now is.

37:08 When the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. For such does the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a spirit. And they that worship him must worship him.

37:31 The little particle of necessity. They. They must worship him in spirit and truth. What did he mean when he said that his worship would be in the realm of spirit and of truth.

37:51 I have found the comments of Lenski most helpful in giving what to me is the most accurate distillation. Of the meaning of our Lord's words. He writes moreover. If a genuine contact is to be made with the Father.

38:08 If the genuine object of the worship is to be reached. Does this not mean that these two. The worshippers own spirit. And God's own revealed truth joined together.

38:25 Must form the sphere. The preposition. And is used. With spirit and truth joined by the coordinating conjunction tie.

38:38 Is it not in this sphere in which the worship takes place. All that forsakes this sphere is furious worship. Omit the spirit and though you have the truth. The worship becomes formalism.

38:53 Mere ritual observance. Omit the truth. And though the whole. Soul is thrown into the worship.

39:01 It becomes an abomination. Thus spirit and truth form a unit. Two halves that belong together. In every act of worship.

39:14 And among the many things we learn from these words of our Lord Jesus. So pregnant with meaning. Is that under the economy which he came to establish. That would result in the utter total irreversible dismantling.

39:33 Of the whole Levitical system. And all of the significance of Jerusalem and its temple. Central to all that he would effect. By was this radicalist.

39:52 In the king of worship. In the context of the social. Corporate worship. His people.

40:06 There is no indication. That he has moved into another realm. That was the issue that precipitated the discussion. And now he says under the new economy.

40:19 The father is on a quest. For worshipers. And he is on a quest for worshipers. Whose worship of him will be found.

40:30 Within the parameters. Of the human spirit quickened by the Holy Spirit. The engagement of the whole worshipper. And all of that in terms.

40:41 Of the impact and impress of truth. Upon the mind and the heart of the worshipper. So that his worship is neither formalism. On the one hand.

40:52 Nor will worship. On the other. So God manifest again. He manifest again.

The Identity of True New Covenant Worshipers

41:01 His great concern for the nature. And the purity of his worship. In the new covenant. And the final witness I set before you.

41:11 Is Philippians 3 and verse 3. The Philippian church was apparently threatened. By the presence of Judaizers. Who though unlike the situation at Galatia.

41:25 Had not exerted any extensive influence. They were like wolves. Prowling about the flock. And Paul.

41:35 As a faithful watchman. Warns the congregation. Philippians 3 2. Beware not of the dogs.

41:43 In the original there's an abruptness. Beware the dog. Beware knife wielders. For we are the circumcision.

41:53 We are the true people of God. Marked by. That supernatural work. That makes us his own true covenant people.

42:06 Who worship by the spirit of God. Or who worship God by the spirit. There is a debate as to the proper rendering. But you come out with the same thing.

42:20 The true circumcision are identified first of all. As worshipers. They worship by the spirit. They glory in Christ Jesus.

42:33 And they have no confidence. In the flesh. Well I trust that the overview of these eight texts. Eight representative texts.

42:45 Or whole blocks of biblical witness. In the case of my allusion to the emphasis of the prophets. And the entire Levitical system. As it is set forth particularly.

42:57 In parts of Exodus. And the book of Leviticus. I trust you hear them joining. In one great and united.

43:06 Proclamation. God's concern for the nature. And the purity of his worship. Having established this foundational premise.

The Revelation of God's Will: Major Boundaries of Worship

43:19 Consider with me in the second place. And more briefly. From God's concern for the nature and purity. Of his worship.

43:29 Consider with me secondly. The revelation of God's will. For the content and spirit. Of his worship.

43:37 We have seen the manifestation of his concern. Now is there a revelation of his will. For the content and spirit. Of his worship.

43:50 And I'd like to address this. And I can only do it suggestively. And leave to you preachers to work out. The fuller amplified version of each of these headings.

44:00 Three simple headings. Its major boundaries. Its specific elements. And its dominant disposition.

44:08 God has revealed in his word. That with respect to the content. And spirit of his worship. There are major boundaries.

44:17 Specific elements. And a dominant disposition. That is to mark his worship. What are its major boundaries?

44:25 Well we've already considered them. In the pivotal text. John 4 and verse 24. The father is to be worshipped.

44:33 In spirit. In the realm of spirit. And of truth. He is to be worshipped.

44:42 Not mechanically. Not routinely. But he is to be worshipped. With the engagement.

44:51 Of the entire being. Of the redeemed sinner. Who is involved in his worship. We often say.

44:59 With reference to one another's activities. Ah he's doing it. But his heart is not in it. His spirit is not in it.

45:07 His body is making motions. But it's obvious. That there is an externalism. There's not an engagement.

45:15 Of the whole man. And I am convinced. Along with a host of commentators. That this reference to spirit.

45:23 Is not a direct reference to the holy spirit. But to the human spirit. God will be worshipped in the realm of spirit. He is spirit.

45:31 He is not a god who can be manipulated. And moved mechanically. Because he has no physical parts. Or being.

45:39 Therefore if we are to come into the realm. Of true engagement and approach. To and with this god. It must be in terms.

45:47 Of the human spirit. That engages him. Now granted no human spirit will. While it is dead in trespasses.

45:55 In sins. While that spirit is characterized. By an aversion to god. In the carnal mind.

46:03 By the spirit of the spirit. No there must be the regenerating work. Of god the holy spirit. And the present energizing ministry.

46:11 Of the spirit. Upon the human spirit. But in the major boundaries. Of god's revelation of his will.

46:19 For the content and spirit of his worship. It is to be worshipped. In spirit. It is not to be formed without life.

46:27 But it is to be in the realm of truth. It is not to be life. Without boundaries. God's revealed will.

46:35 And it would seem that the history. Of the church in many ways. Is the tragic account. Of worship which at times.

46:43 Is all spirit. Ignorant of and indifferent. To the truth. Or all truth ignorant of.

46:51 And indifferent to the necessity. Of the engagement. Of the human spirit. And in our day of subjectivism.

47:00 A generation reared. On the tyranny of its feelings. Our practical danger. Is to think.

47:08 That there is some height. Of god honoring worship. To be attained in spirit. While there.

47:20 To truth. But the father has established. The boundaries of his worship. He will be worshipped.

The Revelation of God's Will: Specific Elements of Worship

47:28 Truly in spirit. And in truth. And this will involve as you see. In the two specimen passages.

47:36 A veritable mine. Field of. Helpful materials. And I mean.

47:44 A field of gems. Not explosive mines. First Corinthians 11 and 14. Where two.

47:52 Chapters are given over. Or the half of one. And the whole of another. To elements pertaining.

48:00 To the public gatherings. Of the church at Corinth. And with reference. To the church in.

48:08 The first chapter of. The scripture says. Because you are not coming. To this act of social worship.

48:16 Sober in your mind. Some of you are coming drunk. Some of you are coming so sated. And bloated with gluttony.

48:25 That you are not. Celebrating the Lord's supper. It is not possible. For you to be remembering.

48:34 The Lord's supper. You're not discerning. in the most sacred institutions connected with the social public worship of God. They are negated by the absence of an enlightened and an engaged mind.

48:52 That's the emphasis of chapter 14. When they came together, they were having their charismatic orgies. And the prophets all saying, Thus saith the Lord. And the tongue speakers speaking out their revelation.

49:04 Paul said, A man who doesn't know what's going on comes in and he says, I've walked into a madhouse. Isn't that what he said? The unbeliever, uninstructed, come amongst you the way things are now. He said, You're all mad.

49:19 Do you understand, he says, that if the worship of God and in that context the exercise of those gifts that were conferred are to accomplish their God-intended end, what must be joined? Look at the echoes of John 4. In 1 Corinthians 14, verses 14 and 15. For if I pray in the tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.

49:47 That is, it bears no fruit in others because my message, my revelation is untranslated. How can it be fruitful if untranslated? What is it then? I will pray with the spirit.

50:01 I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit. And I will sing with the understanding also. Else, if you bless with the spirit, how shall he who fills the place of the unlearned say the amen at the giving of your thanks, seeing he does not know what you are saying?

50:31 The great principle is, you see, that the boundaries of God's worship, spirit and truth, there must be. There must be engaged, enlightened, mind, sanctified understanding. And there must be as well holy decorum and order in giving directions as to what sex should exercise gifts of public ministry in this very chapter and saying your women are to be silent in that setting and in giving a specific direction. There must be a specific directive about how many prophets may speak and in what manner, how many tongue speakers may speak in their languages if interpreters are present and all of the rest. Notice what he says at the end of this chapter, but let all things be done decently with holy decorum and in order. Now, you see, many in our day would say, ha, there's Paul. One of those dead old people that knows nothing of the fire of the Holy Ghost.

51:46 He knows nothing of being abandoned in the spirit. He comes and prophesies and let us speak one now and the other better listen in two. And when three have spoken in the fourth stand, you all stuck your fingers in your ears. Let it be, buddy.

52:02 And if a fourth, I don't care if he's trembling under his athletics and saying thus, that's the Lord. And tell him to shut up and sit down. He's out of order. Someone says, oh, the Holy Ghost told me we make an exception.

52:22 He said, if any man thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge the things that I say unto you are the commandments of the Lord. Dear people, bypassing the moot question. What precisely was the prophecy? What precisely were the tongues?

52:38 Do you see the principles? The principles are that God's public worship is not to be mine. It is not to be mine. It is not to be mine.

52:52 It is not to be mine. It is not to be mine. It is not to be mine. It is not to be mine.

52:56 It is not to be mine. You're not to be mine. There must be spiritual light and insight and energy. There must be engaged enlightened minds.

53:03 There must be engaged and warm hearts. There must be sanctified decorum and order. Those are the major boundaries. The revelation of God's will for the content and spirit of his worship.

53:19 But what about its specific elements? What are the elements? We read from bannerman. Is he right that it's up for God and God alone to say whether he'll allow man into his presence to worship him?

53:35 And if so, by what means that worship will be expressed to be acceptable to God? Well, to me, the most pivotal text with reference to the specific elements of New Covenant worship is 1 Peter 2 and verse 5. After exhorting the believers to put away all wickedness and guile and hypocrisy, and with the yearning and longing of an infant for its mother's breast, to long for the spiritual milk that is without guile, that they may grow unto salvation. He describes this New Covenant community in verse 5 as follows.

54:17 1 Peter 2, 5. You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This is one of the most densely packed statements on worship in all of the New Testament. I can only point to the major contours of the text.

54:54 God, God's people as living stones made such by their contact with Christ the chief cornerstone are, from one perspective, being built up into a spiritual house. They are the naos of God, though the word naos is not used here. It is the word used by Paul in Corinthians. What do you not know that you, Corinthians, are a temple of the living God and that the Spirit of God dwells among you or in you?

55:25 Peter says we have become, by incorporation into Christ, part of this spiritual house, but something more. If you have a temple, what is a temple without a priesthood to serve? Well, you've not only become the living stones to constitute the temple, you've become the holy priesthood to function in that temple. But what is a priest without offerings and sacrifices?

55:51 Well, you, as the New Covenant priesthood, who are this spiritual house, this holy priesthood, you are to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through the mediation of the Lord Jesus, your great and glorious high priest by whom your worship is offered unto God. And what are those spiritual sacrifices? Well, if we search the Scriptures, God has not left us without an answer. The first and foundational spiritual sacrifice under the New Covenant is the posture of repeated offering up of our entire redeemed humanity to God as an expression of gratitude for His mercy to us in Christ. Romans 12, verse 1. I beseech you therefore by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy acceptance.

56:54 Acceptable unto God, which is your rational or spiritual or reasonable service. And in New Covenant worship, then would to God the reality of this would grip us. Every time we gather as His ecclesia, His call to constitute afresh the visible expression of the living temple, the gathered priesthood, our foundational sacrifice is the presentation. Of ourselves unto God as an expression of gratitude for His saving mercies in the Lord Jesus.

57:36 The offering up afresh again and again. Some try to make a big deal and teach a second work of grace because the aorist tense is used with respect to presenting your body. And that's where a little Greek can often mean that using the aorist in the sense in which it is often used. To speak of a prevailing overall disposition or attitude.

58:05 And so he says for you in whose heart the mercies of God in Christ. All the mercies marvelously expounded in those first 11 chapters of Romans to guilty, hell-deserving, Adamic sinners. Those mercies kept fresh in the heart by meditation and prayer and reflection. And by biblical preaching and teaching and all the other means should find us gathering in the day of God's appointment in the place of His appointment with His people presenting ourselves in the entirety of a redeemed humanity. A humanity which body and soul ought to be cast into hell but is now found part of a living temple. Part of a...

59:01 ...stood washed in the...

59:03 ...blood of Christ set apart unto God in you...

59:08 ...privileged to offer up something that is actually acceptable to God.

59:14 Think of it. This acceptable to God. Yes, acceptable to God. Through Jesus Christ.

59:26 And then added to that there is to be the fervent offering of our praise. Hebrews 13, 15 By Him therefore...

59:35 Let us offer unto God continually the sacrifice of praise. The fruit of lips which make confession to His name. Through Him, through this same Christ by whose mediation the offering of our sins is accepted now we are to offer a sacrifice of praise. We are to engage...

60:05 ...and heart and viscera and lungs and...

60:10 ...and offer unto God not the lame sacrifice of half-hearted, half-lunged, half-larynxed praise.

60:22 It's... ...when you offer to God such lame sacrifices.

60:28 I can't stand it to see people who hide behind... Well, my temper is not...

60:34 Temperament's not exuberant. I see those people when they're out on the sidelines...

60:38 ...hearing their kids at the soccer game of Trinity Christian School and they're all exuberant.

60:44 Those same people get engaged in discussing a matter of business and they're all exuberant. And come into the house of God in this part of the New Covenant the lame and the maimed sacrifice of half-lunged, half-larynxed, half-mind-engaged praise. God had very precise requirements for the sacrifice. He had very precise requirements for the sacrifices that he would accept.

61:19 If that was true under a system of type and shadows, how much more is it so under the glorious fulfillment in the New Covenant? The sacrifice of praise. Offered by whom? Not by a man-appointed priesthood called the choir that offers it on our behalf.

61:40 I don't want somebody to take away my priestly rights. They were bought too dearly. Bought by the blood of priests. To be part of the priesthood.

61:55 Sacrifice of praise unto God. I've had some wonderful occasions when people have visited this place and wanted a little tour and I happened to be in the building for one reason or another and as I've taken them around and then come in here they've come up, I've showed them the baptistry. We're very modest about it because we often have our Presbyterian friends and we don't like to rub things under people's noses. But there is a baptistry back there.

62:24 And this pulpit gets moved and that bench is not screwed down and that gets moved and the artificial greenery gets moved. But then they'll say, Pastor Martin, where is the choir loft? I said, it's out there. It's out there!

62:44 And I said, it gathers... ...raising praise to our God.

62:55 How don't anyone go out and say, Pastor Martin castigated choirs, didn't he? I didn't castigate choirs. I just explained to you. What we regard from the scriptures to be God's choir.

63:08 His new covenant priesthood. And when we ask of your worship, he says, yes I have. It's made your boundaries. Spirit and truth.

63:22 An enlightened and engaged mind. Decor in the Lord. And in its specific elements, the offering up of ourselves, the offering up of our praise, the frequent acknowledgement of sin and guilt with renewed repentance, the sacrifices of God are abro...

63:41 ...a broken and a contrite heart.

63:45 ...broken and a contrite heart.

63:47 O God, thou wilt not despise. And dear people, that's why our view of what happens when whoever is leading in the worship is so critical. He's not up there performing. He's not engaging in proxy worship.

64:02 He is our... ...at the throne of grace.

64:08 And therefore when he says, O God, we acknowledge our coldness of heart. We acknowledge our tendency so quickly to go a-whoring after others. O Lord, we acknowledge with shame our prone...

64:23 What is happening in that new covenant priesthood? A sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart is being offered up to God. And it is not despised. And then the giving of our substance, Philippians 4.18.

64:39 Paul says, I've received the things that came from the hand of Epaphroditus. And how does he describe them? In Old Testament ritual language. He said, these things are an odor of a sweet smell.

64:53 A sacrifice well pleasing to God. He wanted those Philippian Christians to see the sacred nature of their gifts for the spread of the gospel in the cultic language of Old Testament worship. Those are the elements that God has required at our hand. And it's our privilege to bring Him.

The Revelation of God's Will: Dominant Disposition of Worship

65:20 And what is to be its dominant disposition? Its dominant disposition. And I've wrestled with this. It's not comprehensive, but I hope it at least stick.

65:31 And the passages on which I rest it, I trust you'll meditate upon them. The dominant disposition with respect to God's will for the content and spirit of His worship in the new covenant is to be solemn joy or...

65:50 exuberant solemnity. You say, those are two oxymorons. Solemn joy? Exuberant solemnity?

66:05 No, it's not an oxymoron. It's an attempt to express what we find in a number of passages. Let me give you two specimen passages quickly. Psalm 2.

66:16 A psalm that celebrates Messiah's reign. The accomplishment of redemptive purposes extended to the goyim. Breaking out of the bounds of Israel the nations given to Him for His inheritance. And in the light of God's commitment and covenant engagements with His own Son, celebrated in the first three stanzas of this psalm, a word of exhortation comes in verse 10.

66:48 In the light of these realities, now therefore be wise, O ye kings. You great ones of the earth, pay attention, be wise. O ye kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Rejoice with trembling.

67:18 There is joyful solemnity. There is solemn joy. Exuberant solemnity, solemn joy. Rejoice!

67:31 Rejoice! But not with the giddiness that carries over into the realm of mindless psychological manipulation as so often marks the so-called worship of large segments of modern charismatic nonsense. I have been in things where slick manipulative talk Isn't Jesus wonderful? Do you think He's wonderful?

68:04 Just give the Lord a hand. Isn't Jesus precious? Let's just begin to thank Him. Thank you, Jesus.

68:12 I dare not go on anymore for fear I may be guilty of blasphemy. I've been there! The manipulation into a mind in which every raise and sway and praise had been expounded. No facet of the glorious character of our had been oared and set forth with authority and power.

68:57 No provision of new covenant blessings purchased by the blood of Christ, justification, adoption, reconciliation, sanctification, glorification. None of these things had been expounded in a responsible handling of the Word of God until the hearts of men inflamed with hands and exuberant praise. No, it was all having a high and without having to pay your supplier. No, it is to be solemn, truth precipitated, bound joy. It is to be exuberant solemnity. The second passage is Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12.

70:09 As we consider the revelation of God's will for the content and spirit of His worship, what is to be its dominant disposition, Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12 is a marvelous passage in many ways. It contrasts that to which we come under the new covenant with that to which God's people came under the old. And as a conclusion, we read in verse 28, wherefore, in the light of these things, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service. Some of you may have a Bible that says whereby we may worship. Others may say whereby we may serve. Why?

71:01 Because the Greek verb in some context means to worship, to be engaged in specific acts of corporate social worship. It speaks most frequently in Hebrews of the activity of priestly service. In other settings, it means to serve God. Out of deep religious conviction, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou, la truo, shalt thou serve.

71:35 And in this context, we are told, a context filled with the language of old covenant cultic worship, we as the new community, this royal priesthood, these come to God through our great high priests are to have grace whereby we may offer service, whereby we may, as no little part of that service, worship, well pleasing to God, how? With reverence and awe, full under the new covenant, in the full blazing light of new covenant privilege secured, revealed, and applied, our God is a consuming, you see, this notion that in the new covenant God's revelation of Himself has been softened is entirely contrary to the scriptures. Christ has fully exegeted God including His holiness likened to that of being a consuming fire. Was Sinai a revelation of God as a consuming fire? With thunder and lightning playing on it,

73:03 dragged it edges with the threat that if a beast so much as touched the mountain it would die? Is that a revelation of God the consuming fire? So much so that the people were exceedingly afraid. My friends, Sinai pales into insignificance before Golgotha.

73:27 When there upon a cross the sinless incarnate God-man exposing His bosom, to the full unleashed fury of Almighty God against human sin is plunged in His soul into the felt pangs of abandonment and dereliction until He cries, My God, My God, Craggy Sinai, there is no thunder heard beneath that mount that can begin to match the revelation of God as a consuming fire when He who is both priest and offering is consumed by that burning fire of God's holiness and undiluted justice upon Golgotha. And when we then sing with gratitude to this God for redemption purchased at so great a price to Himself, surely our worship will be marked by exuberant solemnity and by solemn well having considered the manifestation of God's concern for the nature

Major Current Corruptions of Worship

74:56 of His worship, the revelation of God's will for the content of His worship. And here I get more brief yet. I want you to consider briefly the identification of the major current corruptions of His worship. Our vision for these days is a restoration of God's worship.

75:18 God's worship in spirit and truth. And if we are to move in that direction as intelligent members of our churches and my dear brethren in the ministry as leaders in Christ's church, we must be able to identify the major current corruptions of His worship. And I point to just three of them and give you the heads. Man-made traditions.

75:44 How does Jesus feel about them? Read Matthew 15. Well-intentioned accommodations. We have a generation that doesn't think deeply.

75:51 Therefore our worship must not make demands upon their minds. We have a generation where everything is informal and flattened. Therefore, we must get away from the idea that our dress and appearance has any connection with worship. God's only concerned with the heart.

76:09 He doesn't care whether you've got a shirt and tie on. So we're going to accommodate to the laid-back, relaxed, aghast, disheveled, disheveled, egalitarian mood. Every place is the same. Every activity is the same.

76:25 Well-intentioned accommodations. Man can't follow the train of thought in the old hymns that began as the Bible does with a premise and built upon it a conclusion and from it drew a deduction. And hymns that have continuity that demand I will sing with the understanding. I will love God with all my mind.

76:47 We've got a television numbed mentally. We've got a mental generation. Therefore, let's accommodate our worship with little ditties that wouldn't strain the brain of a two-year-old. Mindless repetition.

77:02 Well-intentioned accommodation is one of the great corruptions of God's worship and thirdly, novel innovations. Men won by I walk by our churches on the Lord's Day. I try to pray for every jogger and every biker I pass every Lord's Day saying, Lord, that guy, that gal's not a couch potato and going to go to an early grave with a cardiac arrest as far as they're concerned. But oh, God show them they got a soul and this is your day to be concerned for their souls.

77:35 People say, well, they'll keep jogging by the church and biking by the church until we've got something to offer that will get their attention. So let's make our worship services innovative and attractive and get them in and close enough to sneak in the gospel. Well, you see, God doesn't need a lie in order to promote his truth. And innovative worship is a lie.

78:06 It's saying what you're doing it isn't if he hasn't mandated it. When he says who hath required this at your hand, you and I better be able to say, oh God, you require it and that's why I bring it. And if we can't don't bring it. It's will worship and it's a stench and it's not going to work.

Exhortations for the Restoration of Pure Worship

78:32 Some exhortations with regard to the restoration of the purity of God's worship. My dear, precious fellow pastors, may I presume to exhort you as a brother in Christ, instruct your people in the biblical doctrine of worship, instruct your people. Don't assume they're going to pick it up along the way. Many of them have had no experience of biblical worship.

78:58 They've grown up in churches and they have a totally utilitarian perspective and the concept that the church is God's living temple within which his blood-bought new covenant priesthood is to have a primarily God's religion. But I've come to adore the living God. Instruct your people in the biblical doctrine of worship. Instruct them on the demands of joyful in worship of how it is that God would have from them the whole sacrifice of engaged mind, the whole sacrifice of engaged lung and diaphragm and larynx in the singing of his praise. He would have the whole sacrifice of the engagement of concentrated mental faculties in your seasons of corporate prayer. Instruct your people in the biblical doctrine of worship. Secondly, give frequent exhortations to your people to be wholly engaged in all their acts of worship.

80:23 This is an area in which we need constant reminders and we must not bang on our people but lovingly graciously exhort them. This is one of the reasons why we have found the practice of the reading through the Psalms as our call to worship so beneficial because you don't get into a rut of sameness and the occasion to be stirred up to praise is so varied and so multifaceted in this altar. Thirdly, my fellow pastors, be yourself filled with the Spirit as you lead your people in worship. You may dampen and grieve and quench the Holy Spirit in worship than a man seeking to lead in worship who himself is not filled with the Spirit. You may seek to affect the tones of intensity and you may seek to frame the words of penitence and praise but if in the secret place before you ever come to the sacrifice of a broken spirit and wander in no boundless prostration before God you will not be able to carry your phony

81:52 acting into the pulpit and cut it with any discerning people. Dear brethren, let us make it a matter of specific prayer. As much as we pray, O Lord, may I preach in the spirit but in demonstration of the Spirit and the power. O Lord, fill me with the Spirit that I may lead Your people in worship.

82:28 Whoever is to be leading them, others in the assembly, fellow elders, or other men whom God is gifted with the Spirit. And I call upon the people of God as well. Resist unto blood any efforts to profane God's worship even at the outer edges of its purity and its sanctity. Why do we run the risk of offending visitors who will occasionally walk in this place when the deacon is on the shoulder ushering them out? And we've had people get mad at us because it's more important what God thinks about worship than what that visitor thinks about how we treat them. If they're offended because we're going to guard God's worship from the distraction of a crying child, they're going to follow me. But you see, a rose called by any

83:57 other name is a rose still. And the ushers are instructed by their elders, get them out. If they don't have sense enough to take themselves out, get them out. Why?

84:17 Why? Is it because they're afraid of God? Because they're afraid of God? They're afraid of what God has done to them.

84:37 They're afraid of what God has done to them. And you should be careful about how you treat someone who is outer edges. I see some of you who represent the next generation, should the Lord tarry. I plead with you.

85:04 Pray that God will put these principles into your spiritual bloodstream and fill up your spiritual backbone with the steel of commitment to these things. And when someone innocently suggests, well, if we're going to reach more people, could we not this? Could we not that? If it is not a matter of fresh light from the Word of God concerning that which God says He will worship, resist it unto blood. Show the disposition of your Savior not when He benignly stands off in the corner and has a smile playing off His lips while they sip the better wine of His creation, but you reflect the Jesus of the burning eye and the flashing scourge towards anything that would profane the Father's house.

Gospel Call to Unbelievers

86:09 Now you may sit here tonight as one who's an utter stranger to these great realities when we've spoken of the blessings of the new covenant of Christ as our Redeemer, of our response of gratitude for His grace, and you say, what in the world does that preacher talking about? My friend, I say it lovingly, I've been talking about the things that are the common currency of the people that are on their way to heaven. And if you're ever to be part of those people on their way to heaven, you better start taking seriously your abysmal and inexcusable ignorance about such things as justification and adoption and sanctification and the blood of the new covenant. And Jesus is a high priest, because you see those words represent the stuff of the only things that will keep you out of hell and land you safe in the presence of God for all eternity. And I urge you to take seriously the issues that are reflected and embodied in those words. They're not religious gibberish.

87:22 They reflect the great provisions of a gracious God for hell-deserving sinners, provisions both adequate and sincerely set before you in the gospel. May God grant that if you're not a worshipper, remember Jesus was talking to an immoral woman while he evangelized her. And in his evangelizing of her, he's telling her that if she ever comes to know the true God, she'll know him in the way of becoming a worshipper in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

88:03 Our Father, we thank you with all of our hearts for your holy word. We thank you that you have given us this blessed book as a revelation of your mind and your will. And we pray that as we have reflected together on this great, massive issue of the sanctity, the purity of your worship, that you would take your word and apply it to every heart, to every heart with power and grant that in our day we may see an increasing return to that worship in spirit and in truth which you seek and which you delight to receive from your people through Jesus Christ the Lord. We ask for those who sit amongst us who see no beauty to captivate the eyes of their soul, who see nothing that elicits wonder and awe, and mischief and disdain. Let us pray. And mystery, O God, have mercy upon them in their poor, lost condition, and open their blinded eyes and lovingly and powerfully draw them to the knowledge of your Son.

89:24 Seal your word to our hearts, O God, our Father, and accept this poor expression of our attempts to call upon your name, to worship you, to magnify and exalt your high and holy name. Hear us, dismiss us with your blessing resting upon us. We plead through Jesus Christ, our Lord.