Let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 12, as we talk about the regulative principle of worship today. Now we mentioned that phrase several times over the last few weeks, and I know that even though we've tried to define it from the Scripture, and from the Book of Church Order, and from our confession of faith, as we've done that, I'm sure that it still is some with foggy in your mind. So we want to look at that principle today. It's found in the Old Testament. It's found in the New Testament. We've been mainly in the Old Testament the past few weeks, but when I get back from Malawi and from South Africa in a few weeks, we'll go to two or three old, a New Testament passages, and see how this principle of regulative worship is applied to us in our day and age. This regulative principle, by the way, is a puritanical view of worship and church life. That's not a complimentary thing to say today, unfortunately, but that is exactly what the truth is. Our Alan Cole, in his little commentary on the Book of Exodus, makes the comment that Israel in many respects must have seen the nation of Puritans in the ancient world, not only in worship and morals, but even in dress, and they were a nation of Puritans. They were called by the Lord to purify their lives and to purify their way of worship, and that's exactly what Moses was trying to lead them to do in these books of Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. Now today, no one speaks well of the Puritan. In fact, they are the whipping boy of the political elite and the left wing of our culture. They are presented as sour and dour and mean-smirited. In fact, one smart elect commented that Puritanism is the haunting fear that somewhere, somehow, someone may be having a good time, which is a nasty thing to say about anyone. These reveals a great deal of ignorance. I've been amazed just to hear in Jackson, Mississippi. In fact, in the state of Mississippi, how little of the teachers in public schools know about the Puritans and how skewed they are in the way they present them, both Joanna and Abigail in high school and in college and Nathan in high school have already come to me and said, Dad, show me something about the Puritans because I think that they were getting slammed in the curriculum. It's amazing, some of my daughters have asked the professors at Mississippi State if they've ever read any original works of the Puritans and they have not. They're just repeating what is the political line nowadays. I always give them the same book to take to their professors, a book by Leland Reichen entitled Worldly Saints of the Puritans as they really are, as they really were. It's a wonderful book that if you've not read, you really need to explain to you a lot of your Protestant and evangelical and reformed in Presbyterian heritage. One young lady who doesn't appreciate the Puritans has written in a magazine recently about worship, a young lady named Kathy Allen, these words. When the Protestant church purged itself of the arts, it blind folded believers and squelched artists and silence powerful expressions of worship. This once-rich multi-hued tapestry, including music and instrumentation, paintings and stained glass, poetry and story and imagery and dance and sense and symbols were stripped of its beauty and reduced to musical style dependent on generational and leadership preferences. There's a back-handed slap at the Puritans if I ever heard of why. She's right. The Puritans did strip the church of imagery, of statutes, of dead Jesus' and Mary's and saints. They got rid of stained glass window that talked of folklore and a biblical events that were misrepresented. And they got rid of incense and candles and desks that made our worship look like something out of the first century, even though they were living in the 16th and 17th and 18th centuries. And we should be thankful that they did that. The fact is, brethren, the Puritans were very much concerned about the arts and science and education and progress. They did not all dress in two colors, black and white. They were galley-colored clothing. They were great seamstresses and designers of clothes. They were concerned about the arts. In fact, the style of art known as realism, where some paintfoot we call a still picture, a picture of fruit or a picture of the field, a picture of creation that is accurately presented, not like the Renaissance art, where men were always exaggerated inside and the divine was made smaller. The Puritans rediscovered realistic art and they presented pictures that are worshipable where we glory in the fact that we are God's creatures in the wonder and splendor and variety of his world. They educated their children in art and history and Latin and science and philosophy and mathematics and Greek and Hebrew and theology and law. They gave them the classical education. They remained today. The best educated class of people that have ever lived in the world, including modern Americans, modern Europeans. They were people who gave us the liberty to treat our wives as our equals. Women, you will be glad to know that the true liberation of women began with Jesus Christ and was carried on by the Puritan. The Puritan wife was in every way considered equal both in the marketplace and at home and in the church. And we could go on and talk about all the things they gave us. These Puritans were a mixed group. They were not all from some separatistic legalistic group of people. They were Anglican and non-conformist. They were independence or what we today would call back this and they were Presbyterian. They engaged in a variety of worship style and under a variety of church governments. But they had this one thing in common. They believed that all of their liturgies and all of their church government ought to be reformed to God's biblical standards as they understood them by the spirit and in their conscience. Leland Reichen makes the comment. Puritanism was a part of the Protestant Reformation in England. The Puritans were impatient with the halting of the Reformation and in their view the English church remained only half reformed. They wished to purify the church of the reigning vestiges of Catholic ceremony ritual in hierarchy. Puritanism began as a liturgical reform but developed into a distinct attitude toward life. That's how they got the word derisively. Puritan because they wanted a pure church and pure worship. They wanted biblical, simple, lively, fresh and pure worship. They wanted the word and the sacraments to be in the primary, preeminent position of the worship of the church. They wanted participation by the people. They no longer wanted the people to just be spectators to priest and professional choirs that sang Gregorian chant in a language that could not be understood. They brought back to the church simplicity. Simplicity in what they called the three pillars of true worship preaching and prayer and praise and music and song. They contributed these simplifications to the church. And I don't care where you find yourself going to church today in America, even in the Anglican church you'll find that the Puritans have had a great impact upon the way evangelical Christians worshiped today by bringing these seven aspects back to biblical worship. Services that were orderly and organized and comprehensible that could be understood by the educated and the uneducated like. They curbed ceremony and eliminated as many rubric and rituals as possible. They simplified their architecture and furnishings to aid the worshipper in listening and in singing and in singing not to hinder him. They got rid of these massive dark dank narrow caves that you couldn't even hear yourself talk in and they brought acoustics and light and freshness and good sound back to the church where we worship. They focused on congregational singing. They simplified and purified the sacraments. They clearly defined the theology purpose and goals of worship. And they saw it as much as possible to eliminate deadness, hypocrisy and meaningless repetition. We tend to think that they were oppressive but the opposite was the truth. Leland Reichen honestly and accurately makes this observation. The main concern of Puritan worship was the attempt to keep it from becoming a routine that lost its power through sheer repetition. This was the heart of Puritan hostility to the Anglican book of common prayer. The Puritans were the focus of laziness and hypocrisy and worship. Mindlessly going through the motions held no appeal to them. The Puritans wanted to keep an element of spontaneity in their worship. They protected the preacher's right and duty to choose a sermon topic, suited to the needs of the local congregation and prompted by the Holy Spirit instead of printed homilies prescribed in some service of worship book. They disliked stinted prayers read from a prayer book though they did not reject the practice of writing out one's own prayers to use in public. The Puritans yearned for freedom and chaffed under confinement. Rather than what they gave to us is remarkable, they rediscovered and brought back to the life of the church, family devotions, the personal quiet time, hymns that were singable in our own language, expository preaching, spontaneous prayers, the fellowships supper at church, lay participation in worship, male and female alike, the elder supervision of the sacraments, a restful Sabbath day, and preaching in the open air and even the Lord's supper outside when it was beautiful letter. That's what these sour and dour and mean-spirited Puritans brought to the church. Now there are people who don't like them today. One of them who calls herself a worship consultant on the maze that we have, worship consultants, but we have consultants for everything today. This young lady's known name is Sally Morgan-Thala. She says, my guess is that we are currently seeing the reversal of the reformation in terms of the arts. The reformers began and became so enamored with print, even to the point of saying that there was no other form of God-ordained communication. Protestant communities have a lot to work, a lot of work to do in recognizing that God speaks also through the visual. Do you hear what she said? Do you grieve what she said? That the Puritans and the reformers became so enamored with print that they thought that they came to the point where they said there was no other form of God-ordained communication. Her words, you know something? There isn't. There isn't.
What you hold in your lap is the printed text of an inspired and errant and fallible authoritative living and active, reliable, consistent word of God. It is his way of speaking to men. We may be stimulated by other things, but God does not speak to us except by His word in the Spirit. And for those of us who really don't like that, then our problem is not with the regular to principle of worship. Hear me out. It is with Sola Scriptura, which is the material principle of the reformation, the issue that, excuse me, the formal principle of the reformation, that which would lay at the core between Martin Luther and the Pope and cause the Great Division in Western Christendom. What is God's ultimate, infallible, final source of authority, and all questions of worship and life and practice and truth? The Protestant says it is the word of God, Sola Scriptura, scripture alone as the supreme and final authority. And out of that doctrine of Sola Scriptura comes the view that God's word regulates every area of life. How do you make love to your wife? How should you carry on fidelity and marriage? How should marriage be kept under fire? The Bible tells you. How should you read your children? How should you spend your money? The Bible guides you. How should you vote? The Bible guides you. How do you worship? Why would we want to make worship? Something that we carve out from the regularity of authority of God's word and not have it come under this doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The Puritans would affirm the arts in every way. They would just protect worship under this Sola Scriptura doctrine of the regular to principle of worship. They would say the arts need to be recaptured for God and used for God and reaffirmed in the church, but not into the ways that God forbids in His word, only in the ways He prescribed. Now, I realize, brethren, that I've raised as many questions, probably more questions than I've answered in this series. And I like to do that every once in a while because that's a way for me to be mean and to not be seen as being sinful. No, I'm just kidding. You don't believe that. You say you are mean and I know that. But I'm going to try to answer some of these practical questions because I'm starting to get cards and letters and mail from you folks. What about the children's church? What about the robes? What about flowers? What about taking up the offering? What about the choir? You know, you're diminished already in numbers. By the time I get through with this series, you may be gone all together. And we're going to try to answer those. And I intended to do that today. Really, I wanted to read through this last text that we'll look at in the Old Testament, make four observations about principles and begin to answer questions. I usually come to you with 15 pages of sermon notes. I've got 23 today. So this is a two-parter by God's own design. It's going to be two parts. What we'll do is we'll look at Deuteronomy chapter 12 and we'll look at four principles. And these principles will raise questions in your mind. I encourage you to just kindly write me a note and let me know what those questions are. And we'll try to answer them in the weeks to come. We will answer those questions as best as we're able. But let's take this morning and let's look at Deuteronomy chapter 12. I think that of all the places in the Bible, know where is the regular to principle is clearly stated as it is in this 12th chapter of the second law. Look of Deuteronomus, giving of it all the second time. And we'll find that in Deuteronomy chapter 12. There are four things. And by the way, this regular to principle is all through this passage. Notice that the passage is bracketed by the regular to principle. Look at verse 1. These are the statutes and the judgments which you self carefully observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. Now look at the last verse, verse 32. Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to or take away from it. Now let me just one more time and I promise I won't do this again in the weeks to come. Let me define again the regular to principle so that if we're going to argue about this, we're arguing about the same thing. Okay? And give you three definitions. Each one that becomes increasingly refined. In a book entitled Biblical Worship, a young writer named Kevin Reed defines the regular to principle this way. The all forms of worship must have expressed scriptural war if there to be admitted as legitimate means of worship. The general sufficiency and authority of scripture are brought to bear upon the content of our worship. This is the meaning of the scriptural law of worship. The Biblical pattern of worship needs no supplements of human devising. Indeed, such man-made editions are a snare and ultimately the very seed of idolatry. Now our confession of faith in its 21st chapter concerning worship and the Lord's day makes this statement. The lighter nature shows that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all. It is good and does good unto all and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon trusted and served with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might of all. But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own review will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation or any other way not perfect. Any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. Taking that truth out of our confession, the regulative principle of worship is reinforced in the book of your shorter under the direct reverse in the responsive reading we just had a few moments ago. Since the Holy Scriptures are the only and followable rule of faith and practice, there is solar scriptura. The principles of public worship must be derived from the Bible and from no other source. There is the regulative principle. The Scriptures forbid the worshiping God by images or in any way other way not appointed by his word and requires the receiving, observing and keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God has appointed in his word. There is the puritan heart reflected in our own standards. Now what we want to do is take a look at the regulative principle this morning. There are four paragraphs in this chapter and I want us to see that there are four principles that we need to understand about this regulative form of worship. Now listen to me. Listen carefully. We live in an age where substantive truth and logical arguments are ignored. In the throws of a national election, you know as well as I do that the vast majority of candidates are not going to answer your questions honestly. They are just going to do two things, present an image that is popular and slander their opponent. That is what we tend to do when we disagree and discuss things in the Bible. We caricature things. We slander and attack them rather than look at them logically and think them through. Nothing that I know of in the Reform Presbyterian Church is as slandered as caricatured as misrepresented as the regulative principle worship. That is why I want to look at this chapter this morning and let the Bible correct our misconceptions about this wonderful liberating doctrine called the regulative principle description. Okay, so let's do that. Here's the first paragraph. Let's read it and we'll find in this paragraph this principle that the regulative principle of worship is designed by nature to be restrictive. There doesn't surprise you, but we'll find out why it's like that in this first paragraph. Chapter 12 of Deuteronomy beginning in verse 1. These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. You shall only destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall tear down their alters and smash their sacred pillars and burn their ashering with fire and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and you shall obliterate their name from that place. Thou shalt not act like this toward the Lord your God, but you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes to establish his name there for his dwelling and there you shall come. And there you shall bring your bread offerings, your sacrifices, your ties, the contributions of your hand, your votive offerings, your free will offerings, and the first born of your herd and of your flock. There also you and your household shall eat before the Lord your God and rejoice in all your undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall not do at all what we are doing here today every man doing what is right in his own eyes. For you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security. Then it shall come about that at the place in which the Lord your God shall choose for his name to dwell there you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your ties and the contributions of your hand and all your choice voteable offerings which you will vow to the Lord. You shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants and the lead by who is within your gate since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every cultic place you see but in the place which the Lord chooses in one of your tribes there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do all that I command you. Now I want you to notice that God is being restricted look again at verse 8. You shall not do at all what we are doing here today every man doing what is right in his own eyes that is what the Lord is concerned about. Each man doing what is right in his own eyes rather than what God prescribed not just in worship but in all of life. And so he restricts their worship he regulates he says you will remove the images and all of the high places of the land you will not even look at those things. You will bring to me offerings there are seven kinds twice in this passage he lists those seven kinds of offerings. You will participate with certain kinds of people with your sons and daughters and males and female slaves and the members of your household and he later on he will say with the sojourner who stays with you and with the lead by. And you will come to a specific place and there and there only shall you worship now what is God doing here he saying my loved ones listen. You cannot let these four things shape your worship culture what everyone around you is doing and likes to do. Community what you and your various tribes or in your various denominations decide that you're going to do or in conscience whatever you personally like or inconvenience whatever is comfortable it is not culture it's not the community it's not your conscience even or what is convenient but my commands that shape your worship. We are to worship God as he commands after all we are coming before him this sinful man it is his grace personified in the old testament and in Christ and in his invitation to come it's his grace that we're allowed to approach him and worship at all. Not something that we presume to take upon ourselves it is God's grace that he let's come here this morning and in our sinful flesh to stand in Christ righteousness robed in his imputed righteousness and approached his throne of grace he has a right to prescribe how we'll do that and that's what he's doing. Sally Morgan dollar disagrees she says as we face the future with the unchanging content and structure of worship we need to recognize that styles change from time to time in style we are seeking again and again to incarnate Christian worship in our changing culture. I would want people to realize that communication occurs through participatory participatory immersion in the audio visual realm if churches do not become oriented towards the visual they essentially will not connect with this new generation that is very very visual. Do you realize brethren that's exactly what the medieval church said that since people don't read we need stories and statues and stained glass we need to reenact the sacrifice of Christ in the mass. We've got to get away from preaching and get to a liturgy their visual and audio the sensory the need candles and incense that sort of thing look where we ended up look what the great reformation was all about this morgan followers miss the whole point that's the very thing we don't want to do. Let the pagan nations all around us tell us how to approach the true God always without Christ always without his word locked into some sensory carnal superstitious silliness. I'm not going back there neither are you long as I'm standing in his soap box we're going to worship God according to his word not according to what's in and out. This is a visual age but who knows what's going to be in 30 or 40 or 50 years. Therefore this idea that we need to reinvent worship is takame me lie. We're worshiping an unchangeable eternal God who's approached through his son who is the same yesterday today and forever with his word that will not fail. From ever old lord die word is fixed and that is how we will approach him things will come and go but the proper way to worship God will always be the same always. That's what he says when he says you shall not do what you are doing here today every man doing was right in his own eyes is that phrase sound familiar it should there was a terribly discouraging book about decadent years in the life of Israel called judges. That's the theme of that book since there was no king in Israel in those days everyone did what was right in their own eyes read the end of that book of judges read about their brazen idolatry in human sacrifice that's what it came to. Rather to preserve the worship and undergird the Christian faith biblical God centered Christ honoring worship must be somewhat restrictive I'm a sinful man no doubt in your mind about that no doubt mine in your simple to and if we decide to put collectively our minds together think about might be a good way to worship God that might work for a few months few years generation and inevitably it would turn us away from the truth and it wouldn't be long till we'd be worshiping another God and wouldn't even be close to knowing the God of the Bible who saved us with his own son. So here's the first point we the regular to principle is designed to be restrictive but we shouldn't stop there that's where most people stop they want to tell you what you can't do in worship but that's not where God stops in his chapter he goes on to a second paragraph through Moses he communicates a second principle about regular to worship and that is that is that in this this formula there is a freedom. There's a freedom within the formula of the regular to principle of worship look in verse 15 however you may slaughter and eat meat with any of within any of your gates whatever you desire according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you that unclean and the clean may eat of it as of the gazelle and the deer only you shall not eat the blood you are to pour it out on the ground like water. You are not allowed to eat within your you are not allowed to eat within your gates the tide of your grain or the new wine or oil or the first one of your herd or flock or any of your vote of offerings which you vow or the free will offerings or the contribution of your hand but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose for you and you and your son and daughter in your mail and female servants and believe I do is within your gate and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all your undertakings. Be careful that you do not forsake the Levi as long as you live in your land what's God saying there he saying look there's some things you cannot do and some other things you can do you are not to sacrifice anything and eat or drink its blood with it. Explain that in the biticus the life of the flesh is symbolized in the blood. Do the tide of the offerings that belong to the Lord and you're not to forsake the Levi the clergyman in your midst but you may eat meat and celebrate in your homes whenever you desire and you may rejoice before the Lord your God in all your doings and you may enjoy the blessings of the Lord and you may share this occasion with people who are proved to come to the sanctuary and those who are not the clean and the unclean. There is a freedom here God gives a freedom of worship and celebration especially in people's homes and does not violate the principle of the regulative the regulative regulation of worship and doing so. This is a regulative listen to me a regulative principle in this postmodern word world words become important this is a principle not a list of rules. There is no prescribed liturgy in the reformed faith there is a principle that guards us and guides us and gives us some freedom. Look at all the different joyful free phrases that Moses uses in communicating God's will here whatever you desire according to the blessing of the Lord rejoice before the Lord your God. It is a sin brethren to caricature the the regulative principle of something negative and sour and dour only to a libertarian age is a negative thing to be told that you can't do sinful things and we need to realize that there is freedom within this formulary prescription called the regulative principle. It is a sin to think that our state intellectual northern European way of worshiping God is prescriptive for all men is not. It is a sin to think that to express our emotions to smile or to actively respond to God is improper it is not. It is a sin to think that joy and holiness sincerity and piety emotions and sobriety are mutually exclusive they are not. But it is also a sin to caricature the regulative principle the way we do a start in cold and left brain. One person writing about this said in terms of art and worship we spend hundreds of years relating to God through our left brain as a set of teachings and a proposition rather than to God as a person. Now society has moved from an emphasis on information to an emphasis on experience and shifted from the didactic and rational to the engagement through aesthetic form to engage worshipers whole person is a marvelous thing at this juncture in history. It is a win we haven't seen for hundreds of years that's ridiculous to say that because we relate to God through his word it's only left brain. I didn't plan this my wife noticed it is you smiling when you were singing rock of ages you got to the third stands I couldn't do I couldn't go on I'd take out this hand that you I hate to cry in front of people only when the buck eyes lose am I not ashamed to cry. You know that wasn't left brain that wasn't planned time to cry you know when you get to the nothing in my hands I bring simply to that cross I claim. I've seen you I've seen people weep at the Lord's table I've seen you laugh and smile on the baby's back died. There's nothing purely left brain about our worship and that's an unfair that's a simple caricature and yet rather than I have to say this with all due affection of my Scotty's friends to assume that the cold and dry in dream manner that our Scotty's forefathers worship God is expressed of their is the biblical expression of worship is not true but it's just their cultural bias they're just Scotty's they can't help it and we're American we can't help it we've always got to worry about taking our biases and making them the regular principle but regular principle does not demand that there's a freedom in this thing it's not necessary we all worship exactly the same way you could go in this city today you could go to first press that you're in church then come to Trinity then go to pair orchard and go to Highland and you would find the following things to be true that there were four different styles of worship and music that there were common elements in every one of those four worships services that there was a freedom within a basic form and that they were all following the regular principle worship even though none of them looked the same none of them. There is a freedom in this thing we've got to realize that especially as the regular principles apply to the home Raymond Brown in this commentary on Deuteronomy says this remarkable passage makes it clear that biblically defined worship is not restricted to specific places in ceremonies it pervades the whole of life inconsistent conduct negates the most ardent and correct activity of public worship God is not simply interested in what we say on Sundays but how we live on the other days all life should be a life of worship our home as well as our churches ought to be places where God is honored and loved and served you young Valorinas you want to dance for the Lord dance for the Lord worship the Lord at home dance for him whenever you don't care if you dancing before a thousand people at the Metropolitan in New York dance for the Lord but the fact that we don't dance here in the worship service is God's regulation we have a freedom in a variety in worship and we have restrictions there's a freedom within this form and I'm not going to let you present the regular principles if there's not that that leads to a third point because Moses belabors this point in the next paragraph and he says that the regular principle delineates some non-negotiables look at verse 20 when the Lord your God extends your border is he has promised you and you say I will eat meat because you desire to eat meat then you may eat meat whatever you desire if the place for the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you and you may slaughter of your herd and flock which the Lord has given you as I have commanded you and you may eat within your gates whatever you desire just as a gazelle or a deer is eaten so you shall eat it at the unclean and clean like eat it only be sure not to eat the blood for the blood is the life and you shall not eat the life with the flesh you shall not eat it you shall pour it out on the ground like water you shall not eat it in order that it may be well with you and with your sons act you for you will be doing what is right to the side of the Lord only your holy things which you have and your vote of offerings you shall take and go to the place which the Lord chooses and you shall offer your burnt offerings the flesh and the blood on the altar of the Lord your God and the blood of your sacrifice shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God and you shall eat the flesh be careful to listen to all these words which I command you in order that it may be well with you and your sons act you forever for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God now what's most is telling them your thing look there are some limitations but there's also some liberties here one of these days we will expand the kingdom of Solomon and David to such an extent that it will not be feasible to go down to Chilo and later on to Jerusalem and all for sacrifices in the tent or in the tavernacle or in the temple every time we want to God says okay there will be times you want to celebrate the goodness of the Lord you may do so in your own cities and in your own gates and within your own house go ahead and do so just follow these restrictions again he reinforces do not eat the blood it's to be poured out on the altar on the ground it is a foretaste and a foreshadowing of the blood of Christ poured out for us dripping down the cross onto the ground of Calvary and do not take the time and the offerings dedicated to the Lord and consume them save them up and when you have an opportunity to go to Jerusalem offer them up and do not worship on the formal feast days in any other place but the place prescribed where the tavernacle is other than that have added there's a freedom here stay within these parameters and have but in the sense within that he gives some non-negotiables they were sacrificial in nature they were places of location wherever the tavernacle was and those principles apply to today there are certain things that we are to do regularly in the public worship of God let me listen for you it's not a long list but we are to publicly pray we're to confess and to invoke the Lord's presence and to pray for each other in the pastoral prayer we are to read and to preach through Scripture we are to sing in Psalms and in hymns and in spiritual songs we would call them choruses we are to take up offerings we are to use professions of faith we are to celebrate two sacraments as the Lord prescribes we are to take lawful oes and vows and set aside days of fasting and prayer thanksgiving now listen we are to do all those things but we don't have to do all those things in every single worship service there's some liberty here you'll find if you study our worship orders of worship here that we do all of those things every Sunday but not all in the same service we may have a profession of faith in one service and say the Scripture reading for another say the Lord's prayer one week and not say the Lord's prayer the next we may sing the boxology three or four weeks and then not sing it but there are three non-negotiables that must be present in every single corporate at the key corporate worship service of the community of faith the preaching of the word the prayer of God's people and singing of praise and song those things are the non-negotiables the preaching of God's word prayer by his people and praising him in song and worship when I first came here we had prayer services and I was told early on we were to do nothing but pray they said preacher if we let you have it you'll preach the whole time we will run out of time we want to make time to pray and I said well that's probably true you're wise people but we have worked as a session over time to introduce even in those prayer meetings since their corporate worship services that we call the community to to have a little bit of prayer and a little bit of reading and teaching God's word we've got to have those it may just be five minutes of reading some verses and explaining it for a couple minutes maybe just one or two hymns and it may be 50 or 60 minutes of prayer but those are the non-negotiables there's a great amount of freedom in what we do in any given service but they're non-negotiables we have to always do for it to be a service that pleases the Lord it's true of the Old Testament saint as true of us let's look at one more thing and then we're done the last paragraph where the regular to principle stated more clearly than anywhere else in scripture and that's simply that the regular to principle is again meant to guard us from worldly influences in our worship of God first 29 when the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which are going to possess dispossess and you dispossess them dispossess them and dwell in their land beware that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed before you and that you do not inquire after their God saying how do these nations serve their God that I may also do likewise you shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God for every abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their God they have done for their God for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their God whatever I command you you shall be careful to do you shall not add to nor take away from it remember brethren that's how we began talking about the regular to principle that the regular to principle is designed to protect us from worldly influence lit at verse 32 again that nowhere in the Bible is the regular to principle put down such black and white terminology whatever I command you now remember he's talking about worship here in the context of this chapter whatever I command you you shall be careful to do you shall not add to or take away from it in other words don't be ensnared by the culture don't say well how are these people around us worshiping God that we may do likewise Kevin Reid says there is no room for comparative religions or the assimilation of man made devices in the worship of the true God in the beginning of this book in Deuteronomy chapter 4 the Lord God says this you shall not add to the word which I am commanding you nor take away from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I command you that it may be well with you and to your children to a thousand generation brethren when we accommodate the world we ruin worship we're going to find out in the weeks to come that this regulatory principle is not as easy to apply as it is to understand I'm granting that there are things our confession of faith says that should concerning worship of God and the ordering the church that should be guided by the light of nature and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word of God which are always to be observed but let me close with this illustration of what happens when we let the word of God be overrun by the culture around it a few years ago a couple years ago the ABC network put on a special entitled I think I believe the title of this special was in God we trust it was about worship in America into evangelical church and in this one particular church they were meeting in a movie theater a new church was starting out the pastor started his worship services like David Letterman starts the late night show he always had ten things you know David Letterman had ten things you hate about this so the ten reason why the ten top reasons why you hate to go to church okay I noticed on thing as he began the people laugh but the time he got towards the end of it the people were uncomfortably chuckling to the point where they were forcing laughter because it got to be absolutely blasphemous he said things like don't you hate to read the ten commandments old outdated rule in the worship of God he said that he said things that were so crude that I can't repeat them to you the top thing was absolutely blasphemous but you know what that's the way David Letterman does that's what the world likes I just yuck it up and make fun of things and go on our way and that's exactly what God is saying please don't do that don't do that because if you start acting like the world when you're in front of me face to face what will you act like when you're away from me in the day-to-day work and roof of life if you can't be different and holy and joyful and solemn and praising if you can't be moved by what I say and what Christ has done then what will happen to you it won't be long that's what God said to your worshiping their God and sacrificing your children by fire in my holy temple which is exactly what the kings of Israel did the Bible progressively shows the decline of worship until one day King Manasseh went into the holy temple of God and sacrificed his son in fire on the offering of burnt sacrifice and that's when God said in the Bible enough is enough I will cut this people off and destroy them from before my face do not think that in a mild or more sanitized form that cannot happen today we come to worship God he's different than the world he will be approached differently and we will be the better for it throughout this passage is the promise if you do these things it will be well for you and for your children to a thousand generation we'll take up when I get back from Africa if I survive it all these different questions we have will apply practically these principles but let's leave here being thankful that our God loves us enough to regulate everything we do and protect us from ourselves and from the world around us even protecting the way we worship him in Christ amen let's pray Father we are thankful for who you are and how you guard us and guide us from ourselves and how you've regulated the way in which you will be approached which is ultimately for our good for our blessing we pray that even though we have a lot of questions we would walk by faith and in obedience and submit to you to your word in forming and in carrying out our worship because we've come here Father not to please ourselves but to please you it's not a matter whether we like it it's whether you like it but we are giving you ourselves and our lives through this biblical form of worship we see that we pray this day all that we've done and said use it for the sanctification of our lives that we might be living in and daily sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to you for all of life belongs to you and all of our worship and all of our lives belongs to you every day we ask you to buy your spirit and your word protect that worship and guard it and channel it in the proper way through Christ and whose name and for who's sake we do pray Amen