Lectures related to “How God Wants Us to Worship Him”.
Two messages delivered at the NCFIC 2009 Conference on The Regulative Principle of Worship, based on “How God Wants Us to Worship Him”.
Click the links below to listen and / or download.
The Regulative Principle in the Old Testament
Below is the Author’s Introduction and Table of Contents to whet your appetite for the book.
Author’s Introduction
Whenever Satan sees revival and reformation going on in the church, he tries to squelch and subvert it by using the church’s friends as well as her enemies. When God sends reformation, Satan tries to stir up a counter-reformation.
Over the past thirty years we have seen a revival of the church with the rediscovery of historic, Reformed, biblical Christianity that had been waning in this country since the mid-nineteenth century. This revival has affected churches from a variety of denominations. It has created multitudes of new churches and some new denominations. God has raised up more preachers who are preaching the old faith today than have been preaching it for generations. And just as those who resisted reformation in the past tried to discredit the previous reformers by calling them Puritans and extremists, so today’s reformers are called Hyper-Calvinists to ridicule their claim of trying to be truly reformed and thoroughly reformed by the Word of God, (as opposed to the barely reformed, or the ostensibly reformed).
Our numbers and influence are growing all over the country and world every day. One confirmation to me of the strength of the “truly reformed” reformation is that throughout its brief history Satan has tried furiously to stop it, but cannot. However, because of his manipulation of the pride and curiosity of man, Satan has brought a new and serious threat to the reformation of the church that, if it continues, will lead to the deformation of the church and the undoing of what the Protestant Reformation has been building for four hundred years.
The heart of Reformed and biblical religion is the purity and beauty of the worship of God. Today that purity of worship is being compromised by people who in most other areas share our commitment to the Reformed Faith. This is not a small in-house disagreement — a tempest in a teapot. It is far more critical than that because a breakdown in worship, a compromise of the purity of worship, is like a crack in the foundation of a building. Although at first the building may appear sound enough, the crack, unless it is repaired, will eventually bring about the weakening and collapse of the whole building.
The biblical and Reformed doctrine of worship is being threatened today from two directions within our own camp. On one side are those who want more freedom and less form in worship so that, if they had their way, our worship services would look and feel more like a contemporary charismatic service. On the other side are those who are calling for less freedom and more form in worship so that, if they had their way, our worship services would look and feel more like Anglican, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox services. Both sides are making the same error: they are rejecting, even ridiculing and misrepresenting, the God-owned, time-honored, and Bible-based regulative principle of the worship of God. That is, we may do in the worship of God only what He has commanded in the Bible, and if it is not commanded it is forbidden. The liturgists decry us as Nestorians who deny the incarnation in our worship services because we do not have more forms and visible symbols. The other side shows its disdain for the regulative principle and its adherents by referring to us as “chauvinists” and “sourpusses.” (At least this side has a sense of humor.)
Many of these new critics of the Reformed regulative principle of worship are personal friends of mine for whom I have the deepest respect and love and who are greatly superior to me in gifts, intelligence, and godliness. Because of this it grieves me to have to criticize them and attempt to correct them because they have distanced themselves from the Reformation in their views of worship. I dare to do so because Scripture compels me to do so. I am not the standard, nor are my views the standard of evaluation; rather it is the Word of God as faithfully interpreted by the Westminster Standards and four hundred years of Reformed thought. The issue is not the Westminster Standards versus the Word of God; but the tried and tested confessions and catechisms of the church versus the opinions of a small group of men. The innovators must be answered for the well-being of God’s flock. Truth must come before friendship. However, because these critics are my friends and superiors, I would ask you not to interpret anything I write here as being disrespectful or unloving to them as Christian brothers. What has amazed me, however, is the apparent ease with which some have cast aside the historic regulative principle of worship set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1:6 and 21:1). Is the reason they fell for the critics’ assertions, speculations, and misrepresentations that they had not adequately studied what the Bible teaches about the regulative principle of worship before they read its critics?
We are going to look, then, at a subject most professed Christians have never thought of. In fact, most Christians today are not really interested in it. And yet this subject is one of the most important subjects human beings can think about because it is concerned with how we worship God, and worshipping God is the most important thing we ever do. Why? First, it is important because God is worth all our worship. “Worthy are You our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (Rev. 4:11). Second, this subject is important because we were created in God’s image to spend our lives worshipping Him in fellowship with Him, glorifying and enjoying Him forever. Third, this a critically important subject because God saved us who are Christians from our sins and restored us to His favor in order that we might worship Him in Spirit and truth all the days of our lives. In Exodus 5:1, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a Feast to Me in the wilderness.’” In other words, the goal and purpose of Jehovah’s redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt was that His people might be free to worship Him according to His Word.
We will be examining why we do the things we do, and why we do not do, and should not do, other things in worship services. Why not use “prescribed written liturgies” and observe holy days in the church calendar such as Christmas and Easter? Why not have vestments and clerical garb, give altar calls, come forward and kneel to receive the Lord’s Supper, cross ourselves, perform drama and skits in worship, or have choreographed dances in worship? Why not use incense, pictures of Jesus, and other visual aids such as candles and crosses? Why not genuflect and salute flags in worship? Why not have a time for greeting each other or for following the many other practices of contemporary Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches that are not commanded by the Word of God?
In this study we will be attempting to answer this pivotal question: How does God want us to worship Him? Not how do we want to worship God; but how does God want to be worshipped? How we want to worship God is an irrelevant question because what we want may not be what God wants. Furthermore, with reference to worship, what matters is what God desires, not what we desire. After all, God is God, and we are not. In worshipping Him — our great King and dear Savior — our concern must always be to please Him, not to please ourselves or to please others. As we stand before His face and under His sovereignty in worship the question cannot be: What do we want to do in worship that will please us? But rather, the question must be: What does God want us to do in worship that will please Him? We are not worshipping ourselves, we are worshipping the living and true God.
So then, the way we created human beings must frame the question is this: Since all that matters are God’s desires and God’s pleasure, how can we determine how God desires to be worshipped by us? What does He want us to do in our times of worship in order to please Him? How can we know if the things we do in worship are acceptable to Him? Just because what we do in worship satisfies us or is meaningful to us or makes us feel close to God does not mean that it is something God wants us to do. Just because the things we do in worship seem to us to be things that God likes, or because we do them in sincerity, or because they seem to be a blessing to us does not at all mean that God is pleased with us. In fact, because self-delusion is so rampant, it is very possible that a person can feel close to God when he does certain things in worship, when in fact the very things he is doing insult God and make God angry with him.
In other words, following our hearts in determining how God is to be worshipped is a dangerous thing to do, for the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can understand it? Jesus said that it is not what goes into a man but what comes out of his heart that defiles him. Furthermore, Numbers 15:39 explicitly forbids it and says that our sole responsibility is to remember and obey all the commandments of the Lord “and not follow after your own heart and your eyes.” Regardless of the intensity of religious feeling or the force of intellectual argument or the popularity of the practice, in the worship and service of God we are not to devise any other way of worshipping God other than what He has commanded in the Bible. Neither our hearts nor our eyes, i.e., our ability to perceive, may direct us in how to worship God. Human beings, regenerate or unregenerate, have neither the right nor the competence to dictate to a sovereign God how He is to be worshipped.
Why not? Because of our creaturehood and our sinfulness we are totally unqualified to determine how God is to be worshipped or to have any say or to make any suggestions in the matter. We are simply to find out what God wants and then do it. Only God has the prerogative to determine how He is to be worshipped and served by His creatures. It is the height of arrogance, superstition, and idolatry to think that we have any prerogative to determine how God should be worshipped. How dare the clay dictate or suggest anything to the Potter!
The question remains: How does God want to be worshipped? Where can we go to find God’s answer to that question? You know the only answer: to God’s all-sufficient Word, the Bible. That God-breathed book is the comprehensive and completed revelation of the will of God for us by which we can be thoroughly equipped for every good work, including the good work of worship. Everything we will ever need to know about glorifying God and worshipping Him is contained in its pages. It is such a complete, perfect, eternal, all-embracing, and all-sufficient revelation from God that it will never need amendment, correction, or supplementation. As Proverbs 30:5–6 tells us: “Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words or He will reprove you and you will be proved a liar.” The faithful Christian loves and believes every word in the Bible and seeks to bring his every thought into conformity to it. As David said in Psalm 119:128: “Therefore I esteem right all Your precepts concerning everything; I hate every false way.”
So now, let’s leave the opinion of man behind and go to the revelation of God’s mind in the Bible to find out how God wants us to worship Him. We will approach the subject of how God wants us to worship Him in this way: first, we will consider a handful of incidents recorded in Scripture that clarify the issue of God-honoring worship; secondly, we will carefully examine God’s instructions in Scripture as to what is pleasing to Him in worship and what displeases Him; then thirdly, we will look at some of the specific details of God’s commands for worship; and lastly, we will attempt to answer some of the objections our brothers have brought against this time-honored, Bible-based principle of worship.
Joe Morecraft, III (2002)
Table of Contents
Author’s Introduction
1. How Does God Want to be Worshipped?
2. What is the Regulative Principle of Worship?
3. The Second Commandment and the Regulative Principle of Worship
4. The Great Commission and the Regulative Principle of Worship
5. The Elements of Worship
Praying
Reading the Bible
Preaching the Bible
Administrating of the Sacraments of Baptism and Lord’s Supper
Singing of God’s Praises
With Musical Instruments
With Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs
Giving of Tithes and Offerings
Taking Oaths and Vows
Confessing of the Faith
Pronouncing the Benediction
Exercising Church Discipline
Saying a Congregational Amen
Fasting
Scheduling Special Days of Thanksgiving
6. Common Objections to the Regulative Principle of Worship
7. Popular Innovations to Worship
The Use of Prescribed Liturgies in Pubic Worship
The Addition of Holy Days in the Church Calendar
The Use of Vestments by the Minister in Worship
The Use of the “Altar Call” in Public Worship
The Practice of Coming Forward and Kneeling to Receive the Lord’s Supper
The Making of the Sign of the Cross
The Practice of Bowing at the Name of Jesus
The Use of Pictures of Jesus and Other Icons in the Worship of God
The Dangerous Consequences of Adding to the Commands of God
8. Musical Instruments and the Worship of God
9. Did Paul Do Away with the Fourth Commandment?
10. What Songs Should Be Sung During Worship?
The Problems with Exclusive Psalmody
The Meaning of Psalms
The Meaning of Hymns and Spiritual Songs
The Character of Singing in the Christian Church According to Ephesians 5:18-21 and Colossians 3:14-17
The Musical Compositions of King Hezekiah for Public Worship
The “Song Books” of the People of God in the Old Testament
The Development of a Rich Psalmody-Hymnody in the Church
The Westminster Standards and the Singing of Praise
11. The Place of Special Music in the Worship of God
The Purpose of Choirs in Public Worship
The Place of Solos in Public Worship
12. What about Dancing During Worship?
13. What Does the Bible Say About Hand Clapping?
14. William Cunningham on the Authority of Apostolic Example
Appendix A: James Bannerman on the Limits of Church Authority in Worship Services
Endnotes