In "Introductory Perspectives on Public Worship, Part 2," Pastor Martin continues his foundational series on corporate worship, emphasizing the necessity of a well-grounded conviction concerning its precise nature: reciprocal dealings with God in His special presence. He then addresses the practical problems inherent in leading and participating in corporate worship, stemming from the leader's personal state, the challenge of distinguishing essence from circumstance, and unpredictable congregational situations. Martin concludes by providing a working bibliography of recommended resources for further study on the regulative principle and the nature of worship.
Community Contribution to Bibliography and Concluding Exhortation28:28
Diversity in Circumstantials, Unity in Essence29:56
Key Quotes
“Suffice it to say for our purposes this morning that the most foundational issue has to do with the fact that in our public or corporate worship, God Himself is present in a special manner and His gathered people are engaged in real reciprocal dealings with God.”
“Perhaps I may stun you by saying we believe in the doctrine of the real presence, but not the real presence in the way of God. We believe in the doctrine of the real presence, and in the wine, but the real presence in the gathered assembly.”
“The conviction that when we gather, what we are doing is to have reciprocal dealings with the living God in his special presence as pledged to us in his word.”
“So, at what point do cultural and traditional and temperamental factors enter? Where is the place for form that is non-negotiable and freedom that is legitimate and warranted? That's not an easy question, but you're going to wrestle with that.”
“Well, these and other things will create problems, but we must never, never allow the problems to discourage us from holding tenaciously to high biblical views as to the institution itself, as to the regulative principle and its impingement upon that which we are determined to do and not to do in the world. The public worship of our God.”
“Now it's a strange thing for me to have lived long enough to see men claim to believe the 1689 confession and love the Puritans and fight that which Owen says was the very genius of Puritanism. Namely the regulative principle in worship.”
“And it's interesting to see that some of the brethren are not yet convinced that actually giving included in the service so that plates are passed is mandated so they have plates at the rear. I like that. I wouldn't want to see them have plates passed until they're convinced that that really ought to be included in the actual structure of the worship.”
Applications
All listeners
If you were not here for the pastor's conference last year, the studies that Pastor Fisher did on the subject of the regulative principle were masterful and we highly commend those to you and they're available to you if you desire to have them.
You must have a realistic appreciation of the practical problems connected with corporate worship.
Since most of you are not presently in a situation of leading the worship of God's people, some of us who are must make you aware of the problems you're going to encounter.
You must recognize that you are not alone in those problems. We're not dealing now with how to rise above them, how to confront them. I just don't want you to be shattered and disillusioned when you face them. You will.
We must never, never allow the problems to discourage us from holding tenaciously to high biblical views as to the institution itself, as to the regulative principle and its impingement upon that which we are determined to do and not to do in the world. The public worship of our God.
I want to give you some that you have in your notes with you, a record of some of the books that I have found helpful in thinking through and wrestling with this subject. And I hope you will find them helpful as well.
If any of you in the course of this semester come across anything please let us know because the materials are not exactly as as readily available in this area simply because we live in a generation that's given so little thought to the matter.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 96 paragraphs, roughly 34 minutes.
Machine transcription
The Precise Nature of Corporate Worship: Reciprocal Dealings with God
Brethren, before we move on to the third introductory perspective on this matter of the corporate worship of God, one of the brethren reminded me that I should have mentioned to you that if you were not here for the pastor's conference last year, the studies that Pastor Fisher did on the subject of the regulative principle were masterful and we highly commend those to you and they're available to you if you desire to have them. All right, let's press on then to consider the third and the fourth introductory perspectives on this subject of the corporate worship of God. And the third is this, that you must have a well-grounded conviction concerning the precise nature of corporate worship. You must have a well-grounded conviction concerning the precise nature of corporate worship. Now, I hope you can see the progress in these principles. We've dealt with the fact that God has instituted it.
God alone has the right to regulate it. Now, believing that we gather by a divine mandate to engage in divinely warranted activities, precisely what is God doing in the midst of those activities that He Himself has mandated? Now, I've attempted to address this question in some detail in a series of sermons entitled Public Worship. They are T.O.W. 1-7 in the coding of our Trinity pulpit, T.O.W. 1-7.
Suffice it to say for our purposes this morning that the most foundational issue has to do with the fact that in our public or corporate worship, God Himself is present in a special manner and His gathered people are engaged in real reciprocal dealings with God.
God Himself is present in a special manner and His gathered people are engaged in real reciprocal dealings with Him. And by that terminology I mean two things.
God's people are bringing spiritual sacrifices to God and secondly, God is conveying special dimensions of His grace to His people. So there is this reciprocal activity. We are bringing something to God as we engage in the institutions of His own, mandate, and God is bringing things to us so that in worship there are these reciprocal dealings with God and they are carried on in His special presence among His people.
Perhaps I may stun you by saying we believe in the doctrine of the real presence, but not the real presence in the way of God. We believe in the doctrine of the real presence, and in the wine, but the real presence in the gathered assembly. In a wonderfully warm sermon by Professor Murray entitled Christ in All the Assemblies of His People, found in Professor Murray's works, Volume 3, listen to the good professor as he writes on page 197. Christ's presence with his assembled people is a precious reality, but one that surpasses understanding. Yet it is to be apprehended and experienced and enjoyed with a joy that is unspeakable. And because so, we can say certain things about it. Christ is present by his word and spirit, and these in necessary conjunction.
And then he gives some biblical data. Then he goes on to exhortation. Oh, my friends, do not despise the assembly of as few as two or three. Christ did not refrain from speaking to the woman of Samaria at the well.
It was his meat and drink. Heaven will resound with the praises that took their origin from that meeting. The reverberations will...
It will be eternal. He did not despise that night meeting with Nicodemus, and the repercussions will be everlasting. From these meetings there began the ripples which have continued ever since in endless circles, and they break on the shores of eternity. Christ will assuredly be present in the assemblies gathered in his name.
So do not miss an opportunity to meet with the firstborn from the dead and the prince, of the kings of the earth. The veracity of him who is the truth is pledged to the fulfillment of the promise. Where two are three, where there are two, there are always three. And the third is the faithful witness, the king of kings, and the Lord of lords.
And where there are two, there are always five, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee. I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one. And there he's emphasizing if the two are there, there are always three. And if there are two, there are five.
For where Christ is, there the Father and the Spirit are present. Yes, beloved, as we meet in the humble expectation of Christ's presence, and as we wait upon his word, as we pray for the unction of his Spirit, and prosper, as we prostrate ourselves in adoration of his name, our hearts will burn within us and the bells will begin to ring in the deepest depths of our spirit. We shall sing, there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her.
She shall not be moved. I've had the joy of hearing that sermon preached on the tape with a baby crying in the background, but it destroyed none of the glory of it in its preached form. Well, you see, brethren, you and I must have a well-grounded conviction concerning the precise nature of corporate worship, that in the specially pledged presence of Christ, we are having reciprocal dealings with God. We bringing our, sacrifices, spiritual sacrifices unto him and God conveying and vouchsafing to us his promised grace.
And it's interesting that Paul underscores in 1 Corinthians 14.25 that this claim to the real presence should even be discernible to an unbelieving person. If the unbeliever come among you, the hearts and thoughts of his hearts are laid bare, he falling down upon his face will cry, God is of a truth among you.
The Pivotal Conviction of God's Special Presence
Now, by way of application, let me say that this conviction has been one of the most pivotal and formative convictions in the life of this assembly. And as I have been privileged to, as it were, stand on the sideline and see God's working among us over the years, I would say it has been one of the most, most precious jewels in the crown of any blessing we have known. The conviction that when we gather, what we are doing is to have reciprocal dealings with the living God in his special presence as pledged to us in his word. Well then, fourthly and finally, in this matter of the importance of the public worship of God and having, biblical perspectives on it, you must have a realistic appreciation. You must have a realistic appreciation of the practical problems connected with corporate worship.
Practical Problems: The Leader's Spiritual, Emotional, and Physical State
You must have a realistic appreciation of the practical problems connected with corporate worship. Since most of you are not presently in a situation of leading the worship of God's people, some of us who are must make you aware of the problems you're going to encounter. And let me name three that I have found very real and continue to find them very real in my own experience and I know my brethren who labor here with me would attest to the reality of these problems. Number one, the problems arising from your own spiritual, emotional, and physical state. The problems arising from your own spiritual, emotional, and physical state.
As we saw last week, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And here comes a given Lord's Day when your heart is dry as dust.
And yet you have to be the mouthpiece of God for your people and seek to lead them in worship. That's a problem. That's a real problem.
Furthermore, you're an emotional being. The scripture says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but abruptly, a broken spirit, who can bear? You may come, as sometimes we do, out of an elder's meeting on a Saturday night. That's why people question that practice.
And your spirit's been ripped open by some pastoral problem you've had to deal with. And you've got a broken spirit. And with a broken spirit, you've got to come and lead God's people in worship and try to bring them into the presence of God with joy. Well, that's a real problem.
And sometimes, your own physical state. You've got a splitting headache. And all you can think about is your headache.
Or as the case of some of us, you may have a backache that's so bad you can barely stand.
And what do you do? Well, these are problems that arise from your own spiritual and emotional and physical state. And you must recognize that you are not alone in those problems. We're not dealing now with how to rise above them, how to confront them.
Practical Problems: Sorting Essence from Circumstances of Worship
I just don't want you to be shattered and disillusioned when you face them. You will. Second category of problems is the problem of the problems arising from an honest effort to sort out the essence from the circumstances of worship.
It's relatively easy to see that there is a difference between the essence and the circumstances of God-mandated worship.
But now, to sort them out in a given situation, because on the one hand, you want to remember 1 Corinthians 9. You want to have this holy flexibility to adapt so that you cause no unnecessary offense that your approach not only to the gospel but to the structuring of the worship cause as little unnecessary offense as possible. And yet, on the other hand, you do not want in any way to introduce anything into the worship of God that is not mandated, nor do you want to exclude anything that is not mandated. So, at what point do cultural and traditional and temperamental factors enter? Where is the place for form that is non-negotiable and freedom that is legitimate and warranted? That's not an easy question, but you're going to wrestle with that. That's one of the great problems in the area of ordering the public worship of God.
Third problem is this. The problem is arising from the immediate and often unpredictable circumstances of the congregation. The problems arising from the immediate and often unpredictable circumstances of the congregation.
When the people gather in expectation of the promised and special presence of Christ, they don't gather as disembodied spirits.
And you could not predict that there were going to be four days of straight rain in which nobody saw the sun. The air is heavy and people's spirits are heavy. As the gray skies have been above their heads for four days, some of the grayness has worked its way into their spirits.
And the minute you stand up to lead them, dullness is written all over their faces.
And you feel it in your own spirit. What are you going to do? Or maybe the congregation has had a baptism of grief, a very dull, dearly loved and esteemed member of the congregation has faced a horrible tragedy just a day or two before. Or maybe been suddenly taken away.
And everyone's spirit is just held in a vice-like chilling grip of paralyzing grief. What do you do? Many of you will experience being nomads in terms of a place of meeting. Our brother Neme mentioned the problems they have in this matter of a meeting place.
One brother said to me and said, I never know when I come into the area where to find you folk. He says, you're always in a different place. And in our early years, we did. We met in everything from a women's club to a fire hall to different schools and occasionally other buildings as temporary expedience.
Well, there are problems that arise from the conditions of the meeting place. It's not easy to live in a place where you give people to a God-centered perspective of worship when they're sitting there looking up at the one leading and behind you is all the stage or all the stage props for the local school play. And the play that year happens to take place in Paris in an outside café. And so behind you are all of the props and the backdrop of a Parisian café.
And the spotlights are covered with green and yellow and red lights and so when you stand up you look like some kind of a Halloween boo.
And that's the real thing. That's the circumstances in which I had to lead worship on more than one occasion.
Or as the other night with Alan and his people in the Grange Hall, they're right next to the fire hall. And right in my closing prayer, the fire sirens went off. So I said, Lord, give me wisdom to capitalize on this. So in my prayer and I just had begun to pray, I said, and Lord, as surely as the siren shrill has captured our ears, we know our ears will hear the voice of the archangel and the trump of God that prepares for that day.
I said, Lord, I'm going to seize the opportunity in season, out of season. Well, those are some of the things. And these problems arise from the immediate and often unpredictable circumstances of the congregation. And that complicates the task of ordering the worship of God according to the word and in a proper spirit.
Persevering Despite Problems
Well, these and other things will create problems, but we must never, never allow the problems to discourage us from holding tenaciously to high biblical views as to the institution itself, as to the regulative principle and its impingement upon that which we are determined to do and not to do in the world. The public worship of our God.
Working Bibliography on Public Worship
So having laid out these four introductory perspectives, let me conclude this morning by giving you a working bibliography on this subject. I want to give you some that you have in your notes with you, a record of some of the books that I have found helpful in thinking through and wrestling with this subject. And I hope you will find them helpful as well. Since I gave the lecture last three years ago, I've got a couple of editions.
First of all, an excellent book entitled O Come Let Us Worship.
Obviously, I don't endorse everything in it, but it has some very helpful perspectives. O Come Let Us Worship by Robert Rayburn, R-A-Y-B-U-R-N,
published by Baker.
And then this reprint of an old work. It's entitled A Remedy for Wandering Thoughts in the Worship of God. Obviously, an old Puritan title. A Remedy for Wandering Thoughts in the Worship of God by Richard Steele, W-E-L-E.
To whet your appetite, listen to some of the subjects dealt with. Kinds of distractions, the devil, the mind, the fancy, the outward senses, the causes of distractions with their remedy, secret atheism and its remedy. The corruption of our nature and its remedy. Unpreparedness to holy duties.
Lukewarmness and its remedies. Worldly-mindedness and its remedies. Lack of watchfulness. Before duties, in duties, and after duties and its remedies.
Tremendous stuff. They left no corner of the human heart unturned when they addressed the subject. And so here you have a tool that I couldn't even recommend three years ago. Then I would highly recommend the section in The Church of Christ by James Bannerman, Volume 1.
Church of Christ, James Bannerman, Volume 1, pages 322 to 420. 322 to 420. Some of the most masterful stuff on the regulative principle and the worship instituted by God to be found anywhere.
All right? Then the collected writings of John Murray, Volume 1, 165 to 168,
and then Volume 3, the sermon I just referred to, 194 to 198.
Now in the works of Owen,
I have three volumes and four or five different sections. In Volume 9, there's an excellent,
excellent treatise, pages 53 to 84. You don't need to take down the name of the treatise, but Owen, Volume 9, 53 to 84, The Nature, and Beauty of Gospel Worship. Volume 13,
page 462 to 506.
462 to 506.
And then Volume 15,
445 to 530.
445 to 530.
Here you have in this section a catechetical approach. By what means do we come to know that God will bless us? We must be worshipped. Answer, that God is to be worshipped and that according to His own will and appointment is a principal branch of the law of our creation written in our hearts, the sense whereof is renewed in the second commandment, but the ways and means of that worship depend merely on God's sovereign pleasure and institution.
And then he opens it up. And it's very, very interesting that in Volume 3, 15, I believe it's Volume 15,
in his answer,
no, I want to get the right volume here, no, I think that's Volume 15 where he is answering, yes, yes, he is answering a work by Samuel Parker and it's called A Survey of a Discourse Concerning Ecclesiastical Polity. And Owen as a polemicist is amazing. He mastered the other man's work and his arguments and listen to what he says when he comes to this matter of the regulative principle in worship and what the essence of Puritanism is. This is Owen now writing about this man Parker's book.
The sixth chapter in this discourse, that is Parker's book, which is the last that at present I shall call to any account as to the fact that I am a Puritan. And he says, I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan.
I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan.
I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan. I am a Puritan. As being now utterly wearied with the frequent occurrence of the same things in various dresses is designed to the confutation of a principle which is termed quote, the foundation of all Puritanism and that wherein quote, the mystery of it end quote consists.
This is what Parker says. The foundation of Puritanism is the mystery of it. Now this is quote, that nothing ought to be established in the worship of God but what is authorized by some precept or example in the word of God which is the complete and adequate rule of worship end quote. Be it so that this principle is by some allowed yea contended for it will not be easy to affix a guilt upon them on the count of its being so.
For laying aside prejudices corrupt interest in passions I am persuaded that at the first view it will not seem to be foreign unto what is in a hundred places declared and taught in the scripture. And then he goes on to say we glory in the allegation that that's the heart of Puritanism. Now it's a strange thing for me to have lived long enough to see men claim to believe the 1689 confession and love the Puritans and fight that which Owen says was the very genius of Puritanism. Namely the regulative principle in worship.
Very interesting. Well I don't want to dilate on that matter.
All right.
Then and here you've got a benefit that you didn't have three years ago. See how God's been good to you men. Clarkson's practical works have been reprinted. He was Owen's successor.
Clarkson's practical works volume three page 187 to 209.
You want to hear a juicy title? Public worship preferred before private. And that's then he expounds I believe Psalm 84 is in the text.
Public worship preferred before private. It's in the I used to have to say in the old Nicolle standard divines it's now been reprinted by the banner of truth from the same edition. 187 to 209. And then don't neglect the directory for public worship page 369 to 394 page 369 to 394 in that lovely reprint of the confessions and catechisms done by the free press.
We have that in stock has a green cover to it. Marvelous stuff in there brethren. Page 369 to 394. I'll never forget when reading the directory for public worship where they mandate the consecutive reading of the scriptures.
I said well we didn't discover the wheel. We came to that conviction when studying the scriptures that they ought to be done. And then lo and behold I found we were in a good tradition in the old Scottish directory for public worship mandated the consecutive reading through the Old and the New Testaments as part of the worship of God. Then several other things with the whole introduction of mime and dance and all the rest Brian Edwards' book Shall We Dance?
Evangelical Press.
And then all of your standard commentaries on the Second Commandment Most of the old writers saw that the Second Commandment set the framework in the Decalogue for what we have now come to call the regulative principle in the worship of God.
That of course would not only mean your commentaries dealing with Exodus and Deuteronomy but all of your commentaries on the larger and shorter catechism when they deal with the matter of the Second Commandment. Hendrickson's work not Hendrickson's I mean Williamson's J.I. Williamson's study manual on the catechism particularly you'll find helpful.
And then there is a good section in Packer's Knowing God on the Second Commandment 38 page 38 to 44.
And then a work that has some excellent material in it entitled Discovering the Fullness of Worship Discovering the Fullness of Worship by Paul Engle E-N-G-L-E and that's Great Commission's Publications.
Community Contribution to Bibliography and Concluding Exhortation
So that brethren I hope will help you. Now do you know of something? Any of you come across a book or something on worship that you have found helpful plug in to the rest of your brethren here. Anything else Rob that you can think of?
No. No. No I haven't.
Yeah. Yes. Well if any of you in the course of this semester come across anything please let us know because the materials are not exactly as as readily available in this area simply because we live in a generation that's given so little thought to the matter. Yes.
Did he give out one? Okay. Well let's well one of you you got a copy of it? Good.
Okay.
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah. Good. Thank you Jim for mentioning that. Good.
Diversity in Circumstantials, Unity in Essence
Well our time is gone brethren and I do sincerely trust that God will write these things upon all of our hearts. I can say and I mentioned to my wife and I think one or two of the elders since I've been back what a delight it is to go to these churches that have just come to birth in the last couple of years such as Flemington and to be able to sit and have my heart drawn out and worship without having to bite my lip. It's a wonderful thing that God is raising up temples for his praise where spiritual worship is being rendered unto God. And all the details are not the same.
For some reason the brethren down there stand have an opening prayer as they stand and sing their opening hymn. I'm glad there's some little difference in circumstances. And I didn't get a chance to ask Alan but I bet you he has good reason for that. Knowing Alan as I do he doesn't do things without reasons.
And it's wonderful to go into the various churches and find in the area of circumstantials the details of the order of services some variety and some differences in the circumstantials but in the essence to see that the elements mandated by God are present and only the things that are mandated by God. And it's interesting to see that some of the brethren are not yet convinced that actually giving included in the service so that plates are passed is mandated so they have plates at the rear. I like that. I wouldn't want to see them have plates passed until they're convinced that that really ought to be included in the actual structure of the worship. See that's where in the circumstances that the people of God ought to give regularly they're convinced and on the first day of the week the plates are out there. They're not there on Tuesday and Thursday but they're there on the first day of the week. That's the essence.
Circumstances differ. And it's wonderful to see that kind of liberty expressed among the churches. And anyone would be a fool to claim that he had light from heaven on all the circumstances. And when we get accused of telling people that it just isn't so.
And all you need to do is go to the places where our graduates labor and you can see that in the circumstances there's a wholesome diversity. But not in the essence. There's only difference in the essence when they've chucked over what they once professed to love. All right?
Well, let's pray and thank God for our time together today.
Father, we are indeed grateful that in this matter of your worship we are not left at the mercy of our own whims, our own fancies, our own notions. And we are deeply grieved when we think of the many places today where men stand and will stand this Lord's Day never really seriously asking the question who has required this at your hand. And we pray, Lord, that you will help us that we may always have a high biblical view of your worship and that we may know and expect that promised and special presence of our Lord Jesus in the midst of his gathered people. Write then these introductory perspectives upon our hearts, that when we come to deal with the practical matters of implementing biblically warranted worship, you will be our teacher. Lord, lead us all that we may know your mind and have grace to do your will. We plead these mercies in Jesus' name.
Amen.
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