Christian Nationalism? First Things First.

By all means, let nations be Christian. Christ is not only Prophet, and Priest, but King. And the government of every nation owes explicit allegiance and submission to Him.

But as transgression of the first table of the law is rampant in their homes and congregations, men who are waking up about the second table are in danger of letting zeal run without knowledge. 

It is a trap to think that one can make a nation Christian, when the home and the church have yet to recover the right worship of God as the rhythm of our days and weeks, and the heartbeat of lives lived in communion with Him, and therefore diligently offered as sacrifice unto Him.

WCF 21.1, Off the Cuff, on the Regulative Principle [a tech-test that was worth keeping]

It was really just a feed-check for new settings on the Hopewell live streaming. But rather than just stand there, I read and explained WCF 21.1 on the Regulative Principle, having just written an article on it for the upcoming edition of the ARP Magazine. Maybe it will be helpful to you.

On DW, KDY, Self-Owning in the Reformed Blogosphere, and Self-Owning in Our Own Lives

I chuckled as I typed "Reformed Blogosphere." It's a paper-weight sized snow globe—buried in the tiny pile of what is left of religion—in the cluttered attic that is America. The whole attic, taken collectively, has an inflated view of itself. But, even among men and history, it is not so big as it thinks it is. And before God, all of the nations are as a drop in the bucket.

If you don't know who DW is, you don't need to. There's nothing that he's said that hasn't been said better, by someone patently godlier, so that if the student will become like his teacher, you have better options. And if you don't know who KDY is, all you need to know for the purposes of this little note is that KDY made the "mistake" of writing an article about DW.

KDY noted that DW has a cultic following who follow DW's self-caricature in taking a flame thrower to anyone who critiques him. The article points out that as helpful as some of what DW has written might be, his fleshly demeanor and conduct should warn us off from becoming disciples, and that if we find ourselves attracted to that demeanor, then that should be its own warning sign about our own hearts.

Predictably, the DWdisciples immediately went scorched-earth, digging up things about the church that KDY serves, which predated him and which will outlast him unless the Lord grants a surprising reformation there. KDY is something that I am not, in part because his conscience apparently tolerates things in worship and ministry that mine wouldn't. So, this isn't a defense of KDY. It's just an observation that the response of the DWdisciples is something of a self-own. KDY said "this is how they tend to act." And they responded by acting that way.

True story: I was preaching on Rom 9:19–24 last night, roughly 24 hours after reading the KDY article. The introduction was crafted around the respondent in v19 thinking that he's come up with a such a clever argument, but that his presentation is actually such a revelation of his character that it ends up being a "self-own." I was very tempted to use DW as an illustration, because he's often had clever points to make (and only rarely are they as invalid as the rhetorical questioner in v19), but the cleverness of the point ends up being beside the point because his character is such that the presentation of it ends up being, before God, a self-own.

One great "tell" that we know little of the greatness and nearness of the Lord is that we still see ourselves (or anyone else) as very large. Genuinely knowing the nearness of the Lord will always compel us to make our lowliness known to all (cf. Phlp 4:5).

Another great tell that we know little of the greatness and nearness of the Lord is when first-table issues are smaller to us than second-table issues. When we obsess over statutes about how to treat each other but are largely unbothered by those laws of God that tell us what it is, specifically, to regard Him as holy when drawing near to Him.

DWdisciples rabidly attacking someone who says they tend to attack rabidly is a self-own. A sinner "finding fault" with God for finding fault with sinners is a self-own. Pride in a Christian is a self-own. Anything manmade or earthly in a church's worship is a self-own.

The Need for Excellence in Worship—But What (Who!) Is the Excellence of Worship, and What Is it to Worship Excellently?

I was surprised to see an organization that I esteem promoting a conference on the need for excellence in worship that emphasizes music and aesthetics, featuring a hymn sing. 

I don't think anyone is for bad singing, bad lighting, casual dressing, slovenly grooming, or doing anything poorly in worship. But the excellence of NT worship is especially in heaven, and this is communicated by a simplicity on earth that says, "the great Excellence is in glory." 

In other words, "more outwardly attractive" is not the same as "more excellent," when God Himself has set for us the aesthetic of simplicity. NT worship is to be excellently simple in the congregation on earth. 

Another Biblical Evidence against Money-Collecting in the Public Worship (or "That Escalated Quickly!")

Some time ago, our Session studied, and had me preach through a series that the Lord much blessed to our congregation—a Scriptural theology of our public worship, in anticipation of some reformations. 

Why Man-Made Holy Days Are Wrong (Along with Any Other Complications of Worship)

'Tis the season to answer again the most important question: what is the right way of coming to God? Answer: "Only the way that He says to come." Any answer beyond this inevitably means adding something to Christ. 

There are of course circumstance and selection questions that must be answered in the course of doing what God has commanded as the worship that comes through Christ. But anything that we add, or that we sneak in by way of "circumstances and forms," is a man-made complication to the simplicity that was "just as the LORD had commanded" under Moses and is now an even simpler simplicity under Jesus.

So, what is wrong with any man-made complication of worship? hpwl.org/worship

1. Only worship that God seeks actually finds God. John 4:16–26; Heb 8:1–6. 

2. God Himself says that man-complicated worship treats Him as common and creaturely instead of as holy. Lev 9:18–10:7; Heb 12:28–29.

3. Jesus Himself says that man-complicated worship is vain and heartless (regardless of how we feel about it). Matt 15:1–20; Isa 29:9–16.

4. Man-complicated worship departs from the worship service that is led by Christ from heaven. It thus fails to come to God through Christ. Heb chs. 1–12.

5. God calls those who offer it, "Them that hate Me." Deut 5:8–10; Deut 4:1–24.

Once More unto the Mountaintop: Fresh Ruminations on Public Worship

This week, I was at a pastors' fellowship where this year's theme was heavenly mindedness. It was wonderful. The fellowship also has a very strong ordinary-means-ministry emphasis built into its DNA. Also wonderful. The pastor of the host church gives a talk on it each year that is superior in its annual variety and closeness of application to the talks of his predecessor. This year's talk was marvelous. So with this year's theme on heavenly mindedness and the perennial theme of the means of grace, it felt disconnected to have so many 'Episcoterian' (my term; excuse the shorthand) elements in the worship times. 

The day after I got back, our family worship time was in Exodus 19. It was a reminder that until Christ, the church could gather to God but not even touch the bottom of the mountain; just the one man could go up—and then throughout the Sinaitic administration only one man could ever go all the way in. But Hebrews 12 celebrates that with our risen, ascended, enthroned High Priest we go all the way to the top of the mountain and all the way in through the veil; hallelujah! 

The regulative principle is not only about making sure that we regard God as holy whenever we come near (cf. Lev 10:1–3); it's also about doing only those things that actually enter into the worship of heaven, only those things that are led by Christ from heaven, only those things that join the assembly of the firstborn, only those things through which we have confidence that the Spirit Himself is bringing us through the veil by the new and living way that is Jesus's flesh, with our bodies washed and consciences sprinkled.

Then last night, I had great fellowship with a brother whom the Lord has brought so far. From evanjelly to fundamentalist baptist, to 'reformed' baptist that was more refordamentalist, and then by Lutheryterian podcast to a church/place of that flavor. Knowing his journey, I understood why he had difficulty processing my views on simplicity and purity of public worship. I wrote him the next two paragraphs, which I've now modified slightly, which is what precipitated this blog post.

When you start to understand what worship is, where worship goes, who leads it, who are joined in it, and what specifically are the worship actions that participate in all that by the Spirit... the believer who understands these things embraces the regulative principle not as a boundary within which we do what we feel like is helpful or meaningful to us, but as a mission on which we hotly pursue in worship only those things that Christ Himself is leading from glory.

So when I talk about public worship, I'm coming from a different angle than just about anyone in "liturgical" circles. I believe in liturgy, but I think that Jesus actually has one (elements and forms though not necessarily sequence) and that to whatever extent we add that which is from man, to the same extent we disconnect ourselves from the worship of heaven and the true church through the ages and throughout history. Ironically, even true churches add things to try to create more connection across history and around the world; but, the very things they add end up taking away from the worship-unity that Jesus Himself had provided.

For further (better!) consideration, maybe take a listen to yesterday's family worship lesson or the "How God Wants to Be Worshiped" sermon series in which I tried to open these things from Scripture. And of course, others have done it better before me.

Ps 29:1–9 — Glorious Worship Is Scripture-Saturated Worship

    1      Give  unto the LORD, O you mighty ones,

            Give unto the LORD glory and strength.

    2      Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name;

            Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

    3      The voice of the LORD is over the waters;

            The God of glory thunders;

            The LORD is over many waters.

    4      The voice of the LORD is powerful;

            The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

    5      The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars,

            Yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

    6      He makes them also skip like a calf,

            Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox.

    7      The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire.

    8      The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness;

            The LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh.

    9      The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth,

            And strips the forests bare;

            And in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”

Ps 29:1–9

After noting that God Himself is the glory of worship, the Spirit pours forth a "flood" of verses showing how very much the Lord has chosen His Word (His voice!) as the great display of that glory in worship. Glorious worship is Scripture-saturated worship.

Ps 29:2 — God's Holiness Is Itself the True Beauty of Worship

    Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name;

    Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

Ps 29:2

The word 'beauty' has the sense of 'majesty'. God's holiness is itself the true beauty of the worship. God's glory (literally, "heaviness") is the weightiness of the worship. It is a misinterpretation bordering upon blasphemy to use this text and its parables to justify artistic adornments of the earthly circumstances of the worship of God.

Clinging to the LORD v.s. Following Your Heart

Deut 29:14a,19–20
I make this covenant with you [...] so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober. “The LORD would not spare him; for then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the LORD would blot out his name from under heaven.

Deut 29:29
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Deut 30:6
And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Deut 30:19–20
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

What a dangerous (and accursed!) thing it is to follow our hearts! (Deut 29:14a,19–20)

But we have a remedy. The LORD our God, Who works all things according to the counsel of His secret will, has given us His revealed will. (Deut 29:29)

He is the One Who can and will circumcise our hearts to love Him with all our heart, so that we will live. (Deut 30:6)

And He has given us "those things which are revealed" as the means by which we come "to love Him and obey His voice and cling to Him" instead of obeying and clinging to the dictates of our hearts. (Deut 30:19–20)

Cling to Him!

What We Need Is Christ!

In the evening sermon on April 11, we saw that Philippians 2:9–11 is drawing on Isaiah 45:21–25 to declare that Jesus is Yahweh—the Name that is above all other names—because He has saved us, and only the Lord can save.

That's basic, Christian doctrine. Only the Lord can save. Only the Lord can sanctify. And He does this by giving to us Himself.

But it is functionally denied by many in the churches. A discussion with someone who has rejected the biblical and Reformed prohibition against images of the Lord Jesus (cf. WLC 109) inevitably touches upon how we mightn't use them for worship, but how helpful they can be for instruction. As HC 98 rightly recognizes, that sort of reasoning is rubbish, precisely because it is God Who must choose how to teach His people.

The same is true when it comes to manmade additions to the public worship of God, the following of the church calendar, etc. It seems like otherwise Reformed people suddenly fall back upon how helpful or meaningful they find it. But that makes us the judges of what is helpful or what is meaningful. It's the same mistake that others make with the images.

Because I am desperate for God the Spirit to attend the ministry with His power, and convinced that we have nothing in or from ourselves that can glorify God or do good to His people, I'm unwilling to add anything that hasn't come from His Word. This means that sometimes people's love for those things of a merely human origin has led to a dissatisfaction with the ministry. So be it. It is only my flesh that wants them to find my ministry satisfying anyway; in the Spirit, my desire is that they would be satisfied with Christ in the ministry. 

And I know that we are complex beings, and that for those who genuinely love Christ, it is very easy to confuse ourselves about what it is that we are finding satisfying—especially because He has been merciful and gracious and met us often, even when we were doing things that were from us and not from Him. That of course doesn't justify what we are doing, and it becomes a judgment from God if He gives us over to thinking that our religious traditions are justified by how "helpful" we think they have been.

But there is one thing that has occasionally happened to show this most starkly. Someone will find that the Lord is meeting them in the means of grace. He will see that the Lord is meeting his family as well. He will see the effects that Christ is producing in him, and in his family, and in the congregation around him. So far so good. I'm not thinking, in this article, about those who go to church merely to feel spiritual things or do spiritual-feeling things. It's no use to reason with such an one from the glory of Christ or from our desperate need for Christ.

But even for someone who genuinely loves and needs Christ, but has been exposed to manmade traditions (from worship-set Christianity to Episcoterianism or anything in between) there will be some manmade thing that he just gets to missing so much in the worship. Or some manmade religious tradition. And eventually, he will reason that he can go elsewhere, still get the means by which Christ gives Himself to us, but also get those things that he has so intensely been missing. 

He doesn't see it, but when one begins to reason this way, God's providence is discovering to him that he doesn't feel Christ Himself to be enough. And at immediately this point of spiritual need, he is being tempted to remove himself to a church where utter dependence upon Christ is not entirely driving worship and ministry decisions. It's the opposite of what he needs.

It's like the man with his purported Jesus pictures. His feeling that they are helpful is itself an indicator that, to grow and mature himself out of such feelings, he needs the real help of the real Christ by the real Spirit, which we can only rightly seek by the means that He Himself has given.

Now, I've been discussing what we need because I hope to help those who feel pulled by what they feel is helpful or meaningful to them. But what we need is really only of secondary importance. The issue of ultimate importance is what glorifies God. What God says to do. Refusing to sin by adding to that. Refusing to add to that sin by reasoning that our additions are good. 

But when we weigh such questions, we discover that finding manmade religion helpful or meaningful is itself an indicator that what we need at that moment is not to indulge our inclinations but that help which is opposite our inclinations.

The reason that these two things intersect is because in God's marvelous grace, He has been pleased to glorify Himself by making Himself our Help. What a marvelous and generous and glorious God He is! And what fools we are who think that we can add to either His grace or His glory.

What men need, when they find manmade religion helpful, is this glorious God Himself, by only that religion in which He has chosen to be glorified by giving Himself.

More Simplicity, Less Outward Glory, but More Fullness, Evidence, and Spiritual Efficacy

WCF 7.6 Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper: which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity, and less outward glory, yet, in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.

There is a gospel (new testament) principle of simplicity at the core of what Christ's finished work has done to our worship. 

The Priest is now in heaven. The sacrifice has been performed once for all. He sings through His people's mouths and accompanies it by His work in the heart. His blessing is proclaimed by preaching, and in His royal-priesthood's admonishing one another in song and showing forth His death until He comes. 

The very simplicity of the Christian worship assembly's liturgy announces, "the substance of these things is not so much here as it is in glory, where we are seated with Him, and where He presents us, and from where He preaches and He sings and He gives us Himself!" (cf. Heb 2:10–13, Eph 2:4–10)

Whatever extra formality is added upon earth mutes this announcement and obscures this reality. When we worship in simplicity and purity, we are not exulting in simplicity and purity but rather exulting in God through Christ. If, lacking the Spirit-given faith to perceive Him, we attempt to dress things up with that which we think will better present Him to ourselves, we unwittingly muddle the very means by which the Spirit is ordinarily pleased to give that faith.

When once God deemed it good to give Himself through the voice on the mountain as fleshed out by the inscripturated pattern given to Moses, His people frequently thought this might be enhanced by various locations and images, which came to be enshrined in their traditions. But God said that doing so is to "hate Him," and indeed He hated their worship (cf. Deu 4–5). They could only have the true God by way of the given worship.

Now, God has deemed it good to give Himself through the finished work of His only-begotten Son, personally led by the God-Man from the throne of glory and grace. The true "worship war" is not so much among varying preferences of men as it is between the gospel simplicity in which Christ is held forth and whatever hiding of Him from true Spiritual view comes by man's sophomoric (indeed, idolatrous) additions to that simplicity.

Your Face, O Lord, I Will Seek

We ought to tremble
In this time when many are alarmed at earthly things that are happening, we ought to tremble with dread at a spiritual thing that isn't happening.

We have been shifting from God to man
For generations, churches have lost the true sense of the reality of God among us.

Less and less, have we sought His involvement or offered that which pleases Him; more and more, we have innovated to involve more men and please more men. It has been a long, slow, slouch toward functional atheism in how we handle the things of God.

If ever there was a time to reverse the shift, this is the time

The Glory of Advent Season

Heaven has come down to earth. But let those who love this glorious reality learn to love another marvelously glorious reality: on the first day of each week, the ascended Lord calls an assembly on earth to come up to Heaven! This weekly celebration is Christ's own way of celebrating His advent.

What Are We Commanded to Sing in Public Worship?

Recently, I encountered [an article] attempting to reason against Exclusive Psalmody. If you're not familiar with the case for EP, here's an overly brief/simple summary:

Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That which we sing in corporate worship will dwell in us richly. There is only One whose Words may be permitted to do so! (see also the parallel in Eph 5:18-21, where this rich-indwelling of Christ's Word is conjoined with being filled with the Spirit, and each of us is to render obedience to what the others are singing--again, not something to be done with the ideas of men, but only with the Word of God.)

Hebrews 2:11:12 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

Quoting from Psalm 22, the apostle teaches that part of the "joy set before Him" on the cross, was Jesus's current action in not only the preaching, but also His activity in the singing in the worship assemblies of the church. If it is Jesus who sings in the assembly, we must not presume to put our words or thoughts into His mouth!

Then, there are the many, many obvious Scriptures that apply the 2nd commandment. Basically, if we worship according to the ideas of men, then we make ourselves our own gods. We might sound like we are honoring God with our lips, but our hearts will be far from Him.

The WCF summarizes these Scriptures thusly:

The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed 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 prescribed in the Holy Scripture.

So, how is it that I arrive at believing that I am commanded to sing some of what people call "hymns"? It really is not by the form of argument in the article above. I'm not particularly convinced that creed/confession recitation is a prescribed element of the public worship of God (it troubles my conscience to do so where I currently minister, but I submit to the elders in their understanding texts like 1Cor 1:10 to imply some kind of speaking together for confessing the faith). And whereas the preaching that is commanded is inherently expository, but singing is not inherently expository, so that analogy dies easily. The article by itself would push me in the other direction.

However, one cannot so easily dismiss the assertion that metrical translation is inherently paraphrastic--or that singing itself requires some extent of paraphrase.

The argument that has actually compelled me into what some would call "hymn singing" is the fact that we are commanded to sing as the Spirit's appointed method for the rich indwelling of the Word of Christ, and that the Holy Spirit has attached a specific glory to the name, Jesus (c.f. Phil 2:9-11; Col 3:16-17).

In the first place, if "Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" is a limiting clause, then we may only sing in public worship those particular Psalms with those words in the superscripts. So, not even the entire Psalter would be commanded in that case. However, if that is not a limiting clause, then the full command is to sing the Word of Christ--so, rather than like so many "red-letter" text editions of Scripture, we must understand a command to sing the Words of Christ as a command to sing the thoughts of all of Scripture.

I am sympathetic to the argument that the thoughts of all of Scripture may be found somewhere in the Psalms. But, personal and pastoral experience has proved that while we may sing a couple lines from a Psalm that are analogous in theme to the other Scripture text about which we are trying to obey the command; yet, a metrical/paraphrastic translation of that text itself, or faithful opening of its ideas in verse, is a more direct and complete obedience to the command.

I appreciate that the article is trying to say that there is such a thing as hymn singing that is not "our putting our words into God's mouth." At least, I hope that's what he was saying: "here are other places where we are very intentionally yielding our thoughts to God's thoughts by paraphrased/rearranged words; and, that is something that applies especially in the form of song."

Ultimately, this comes to a head when trying to obey the good and necessary consequence of Phil 2:9-11 and the command of Col 3:17. Because, while there are many names and titles for Christ in the Psalter, yet I am commanded by God specifically to use the name of Jesus, and specifically in the glorifying of the Father through the worship of Christ, and specifically in context and connection with letting Christ's Word dwell in me richly in connection with congregational singing in the public worship of God.

Now--a proper understanding of Scripture commands for worship would exclude a vast majority, of the hymns currently sung in American services on the Lord's Day. But, I also think it excludes being exclusive to the Psalter.

190205FW Hebrews 12:22-13:4 - Heaven-and-Earth-Shaking Worship

Family worship teaching time, following up upon Hebrews 12:22-13:4 from the Call to Worship, Prayer for Help, Song of Adoration, and Confession of Sin in the Lord's Day morning worship service. In corporate worship, the Lord brings us by faith into the great worship assembly in glory. From there, He speaks to us by His living Word in the preaching, preparing us to receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken!

180618FW Hebrews 12:28

Family Worship teaching time from Hebrews 12:28, following up upon the Lord's Day morning sermon

Two wise pastors from yesteryear, and their concern for souls on Christmas

Truly, we do not wish to trouble or alienate anyone more than is necessary for the care of souls. This, perhaps, is why Spurgeon in his younger years accommodated the "Christian" co-opting of Saturnalia. And, it may have something to do with why Calvin, upon his return to Geneva, accepted the will of the people of that city-state regarding the day.

However, these men still loved the souls of those entrusted to their care, as I hope that the Judgment will vindicate me of having done, and so even in the observance of the day, they raised the alarm against man-made fantasies in spiritual things, and pointed people instead to the true and living Lord Jesus Christ, whom we may only know insofar as--and by those means by which--He has given Himself to us.

Rather than attempt to navigate this thorny path on my own, I leave my beloved readers in the capable hands of these faithful ministers, by words that they carefully selected in later years of ministry, having a wisdom to which I do not in this life expect to attain.

Calvin, excerpt from 1551 Christmas sermon while preaching through Micah (https://goo.gl/pESSwM):

Now, I see here today more people than I am accustomed to having at the sermon. Why is that? It is Christmas day. And who told you this? You poor beasts. That is a fitting euphemism for all of you who have come here today to honor Noel. Did you think you would be honoring God?

Consider what sort of obedience to God your coming displays. In your mind, you are celebrating a holiday for God, or turning today into one but so much for that. In truth, as you have often been admonished, it is good to set aside one day out of the year in which we are reminded of all the good that has occurred because of Christ’s birth in the world, and in which we hear the story of his birth retold, which will be done Sunday.

But if you think that Jesus Christ was born today, you are as crazed as wild beasts. For when you elevate one day alone for the purpose of worshiping God, you have just turned it into an idol. True, you insist that you have done so for the honor of God, but it is more for the honor of the devil.

Let us consider what our Lord has to say on the matter. Was it not Saul’s intention to worship God when he spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites, along with the best spoils and cattle? He says as much: ‘I want to worship God.’ Saul’s tongue was full of devotion and good intention. But what was the response he received? ‘You soothsayer! You heretic! You apostate! You claim to be honoring God, but God rejects you and disavows all that you have done.’

Consequently, the same is true of our actions. For no day is superior to another. It matters not whether we recall our Lord’s nativity on a Wednesday, Thursday, or some other day. But when we insist on establishing a service of worship based on our whim, we blaspheme God, and create an idol, though we have done it all in the name of God. And when you worship God in the idleness of a holiday spirit, that is a heavy sin to bear, and one which attracts others about it, until we reach the height of iniquity.

Therefore, let us pay attention to what Micah is saying here, that God must not only strip away things that are bad in themselves, but must also eliminate anything that might foster superstition. Once we have understood that, we will no longer find it strange that Noel is not being observed today, but that on Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper and recite the story of the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But all those who barely know Jesus Christ, or that we must be subject to him, and that God removes all those impediments that prevent us from coming to him, these folk, I say, will at best grit their teeth. They came here in anticipation of celebrating a wrong intention, but will leave with it wholly unfulfilled.

Spurgeon, in the introduction to his Christmas sermon in 1871, disavowing the superstition of the season and the day, and explaining that he is preaching upon the incarnation because it is a correct thing for any day of the year:

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas: first, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Saviour; and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority.

Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Saviour’s birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. Fabricius gives a catalogue of 136 different learned opinions upon the matter; and various divines invent weighty arguments for advocating a date in every month in the year.

It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it.

Because the day is not known, therefore superstition has fixed it; while, since the day of the death of our Saviour might be determined with much certainty, therefore superstition shifts the date of its observance every year. Where is the method in the madness of the superstitious? Probably the fact is that the holy days were arranged to fit in with heathen festivals.

We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Saviour was born, it is the twenty-fifth of December. Nevertheless since, the current of men’s thoughts is led this way just now, and I see no evil in the current itself, I shall launch the bark of our discourse upon that stream, and make use of the fact, which I shall neither justify nor condemn, by endeavoring to lead your thoughts in the same direction.

Since it is lawful, and even laudable, to meditate upon the incarnation of the Lord upon any day in the year, it cannot be in the power of other men’s superstitions to render such a meditation improper for to-day. Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of his dear son.

In Support of Simplicity in Worship

In preaching through the book of Hebrews, I've been struck again with how the Lord intentionally planned to glorify His Son by the transition that would take place in worship from something attached to a particular place and nation on earth to something that can happen among any place and nation because it now takes place primarily in Heaven.

Take especially chapters 2 and 12 together. We come to Mount Zion, God's heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, the congregation of the Firstborn, the souls of the just made perfect, God the Judge of all, Christ Jesus the (better) Mediator of the New (everlasting) Covenant. And it is there that He presents us (Behold I and the children whom You have given me) upon the basis of His own faith ("I will put my trust in Him") and proceeds to declare His Father's Name to us and sing His Father's praise in the midst of our assembly.

This transition from worship that was tied to a specific place/nation to worship that instead exults in the Person of the Christ is exactly the substance of one the most important conversations ever had in worship: Jesus, with the woman at the well. She wants to know, "where is the right place to worship?" He answers, "Well, it used to be the temple, but you actually can't walk to the right place anymore. God is Spirit, and the only transportation to the right 'place' of worship is the activity of the Holy Spirit by the instrumentality of the Scriptures." Amazingly, that woman rightly understood that this amazing transition was bound up with the coming of the Christ and the identity of the Christ! When we try to "culturally contextualize" worship, we are chafing precisely against the point that Christ was making there in John 4.

It is simply impossible to emphasize or add any earthly activity without diverting attention from the glory of the heavenly reality of Christian congregational worship.

When God has determined to glorify something by its simplicity, then whatever man adds must necessarily subtract from that glory.

Real Reverence and Awe: True Faith in the True God

The Visible Idolatry of Statism
A Facebook friend astutely pointed out the similarity between the temple of Zeus and the Lincoln “Memorial.” The true religion of our government is statism, and Lincoln is one of many in its pantheon. There is a difference between memorials and temples. As we have seen these last few days,those who worship at the latter sometimes abominate the former. Remembering truly can be an irritating obstacle to worshiping falsely.

Someone truly uninitiated would have no difficulty identifying the gods of our culture, because he would recognize them by their ostentatious temple buildings at the capitols, university campuses, sport team arenas, cineplexes, shopping malls, and theme parks. But only one variety of our deities has ascended to the level of being carved into the side of a mountain (?!). Can it be any wonder that continual vigilance is necessary in the civil arena to restrain our descent into socialism?

The Invisible Glory of the True God
This is one reason why it is so refreshing that the worship of the one true God takes place even in bare rooms, with little pomp, among unimpressive people, respectfully but inexpensively adorned, with little more of note on earth than simple human voices: the God who is worshiped there cannot be contained in any temple, and these unimpressive people He instead gathers to Himself in glory by faith. Those who lack faith cannot see it and "get nothing out of it."

The Silliness of Sight
Shockingly, there are those in the churches who, rather than seeing this as expected, and exerting themselves before God and in pursuit of that requisite faith for themselves and their neighbors... they instead hasten, embarrassed of our earthly unimpressiveness, accessorize their worship with all manner of things to appeal to the senses, as if the Lord of Heaven could thus be made accessible.

The Glorious Substance of Faith
But He is not accessible except through that High Priest who is God Himself, and who became the very Lamb, through whose once-for-all shed blood, we enter the true Holy of Holies in heaven. When the veil tore from top to bottom, those who entered the structure on earth found no one.

Yet those who, believing in Christ, enter Lord's Day by Lord’s Day the simple services of biblically worshiping congregations, find therein not oversized statues or sensory-overloading frenzy or magnificent architectural opulence… but the Living and True God before whom the idols of men are less than dust. We enter heaven itself by faith (Heb 12:18-29).

How Will We Respond?
As Habakkuk emerged from the confusion of sight into the clarity of faith, the clamor of human idolatry ceased to impress him: “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.” (Hab 2:20)

Let us be like so many Elijah's, giving little credit to, and having no fear of, the idol worshipers in their fanatic frenzy. They have about them not a spark of power. Let us instead, in simple, humble words of faith look to Him who is invisible and hears even whispers of the heart. Whether His power manifests itself in flames on Mount Carmel, or a young man who overcomes his addiction to pornography, it is for the True God and for His almighty power alone that we seek.

The only God worth worshiping is Himself a consuming fire. And the only acceptable way of worshiping Him is by faith (not sight), in reverence and awe. Heb 12:28-29.