According to Leviticus chapter 2, Leviticus chapter 2, our study resumes at verse 4. Just to set this up, while you're turning there, last time we looked at Moses' instructions concerning burnt offerings from either one's herd, the flock, or in the case of the poorest among them, the offering of birds. We then move to a discussion of grain offerings. There are several types of grain offerings as we've discovered thus far, but as I pointed out, the major difference between the burnt offering and the grain offering is that The grain offering did not involve any bloodshed, and so since there's no bloodshed in the grain offering, there is no implication or no indication that there would be any atonement for sin implied there. Grain offerings, as opposed to burnt offerings, were made generally to remind the one making the offering that they were in covenant relationship with God. Again, it wasn't for atonement, it wasn't necessarily for a sin offering, although certain grain offerings, as we'll discover a little later, certain grain offerings were allowed to be substituted for burnt offerings, and they would make appropriate sacrifices for sin. But by and large, they were considered to be offerings that would indicate that one was in a right relationship with God through that unilateral covenant that God was pleased to establish with them. You'll recall that back in Genesis chapter four, Cain and Abel made their own offerings. With Cain's offering, the Lord was not pleased with Abel's offering. He was pleased and we always ask the question, why might that be? Was it content or character? Was it what was included in the sacrifice or was it the attitude that was presented when the sacrifice was made? And we've concluded that it was probably both. In Cain's offering, you'll recall that Cain brought of the first fruits of the ground, he brought veggies and grains and Abel, understanding no doubt that there was a salvific importance in the burnt offering he brought from the first of his flock, a blood offering of atonement. And again, don't misunderstand what's going on here because Cain's offering was rejected and Abel's was accepted and that means that Whether it was one, the other, or both of those things, either content or attitude, God rejected the sacrifice. And I would just say this, God rejects the sacrifice of Cain and accepts the sacrifice of Abel much in the same way that he accepts and rejects our worship of him today. We talked last time a great deal about pragmatism and how many have determined that worship is anything that we do in order to present our own idea of God's worthiness. Worship is anything that we do that where the ends justify the means. In other words, if I keep doing something and I'm able to draw in huge crowds of people, we can call that worship. But as we're going to talk about a little later on in much more depth, there is a thing in the scripture known as the regulative principle of worship. In other words, God demands that he be worshiped in certain ways. God accepts only one kind of worship and not another kind of worship. And by the way, just so you'll know as we go into all the details that we're about to go into, remember what God is doing is making it very clear that he will be worshiped according to his standards. not according to our standards. These details are put into place to show that God is a very meticulous, orderly God. They're not inserted into the process to frustrate. They're not inserted into the process to keep people out. They're inserted into the process for that very reason, to show that God is a God who is concerned very much with detail. And so we're going to talk about that again a little later on as we get to the end of the message. Anyway, the grain offerings described here in verses 1 through 3 of the second chapter fall into the category of uncooked offerings. We talked about this a bit last week. Let me just remind you of what we looked at. These offerings consisted of fine flour, usually made in the same way we make flour today, crushed wheat, crushed barley, oil, and frankincense. The oil would have been olive oil, the frankincense would have been the resin or the sap that comes out of certain trees, usually collected around Arabia in that region. Very costly, very fragrant, very aromatic. Now again, it might seem as though we have a recipe here for a pretty tasty little cake. The only problem is you wouldn't eat frankincense. The oil in the flour, yep, you can make a lot of different sizes, shapes of cakes. You can add ingredients into that, and you can come up with something pretty tasty. But you'd never want to eat frankincense. Frankincense, by and large, was not only very pungent when it was in its purest form, but if you ate it, it would actually induce vomiting. And so that's not something you'd want to do, especially on a day of worship, especially as doing something to honor and glorify God. And so these These frankincense additions were, again, for the value of their aroma. When the sacrifice would be burned, it would send up this frankincense smell as a sweet aroma to God. Now, again, we need to understand that that in and of itself signifies something much larger. God doesn't have olfactory nerves in his nonexistent nose, right? God is not necessarily pleased with various aromas while other aromas turn him off. No, God is expressing here that what he finds acceptable, most of all, is following his instructions. And much in the same way that the frankincense would be a sweet aroma to those making the sacrifices, in the same way those frankincense additions into these grain offerings would have reminded them that God is pleased with what they are doing in obedience to his commands. And so again, let's not get the idea that God has a sense of smell and he likes certain things and doesn't like other things. That's not what's going on here at all. So when we're told here in verse 3 of our text that the grain offering of flour, oil, and frankincense was to be offered to the Lord by fire as a soothing aroma, we're also told that the remainder of the grain offering, and that would exclude the frankincense. Frankincense really had no other purpose than to be offered up as a soothing aroma to the Lord to be used in worship. But the remaining ingredients, any oil or flour that might have been left over, was to be reserved for Aaron and his sons. and they would then make the cakes and they would eat them. This is the same recipe, by the way, for the showbread that would be prepared and placed on the table inside the tabernacle. Once anything was left over, even after the worship was done, if there was any showbread left over, they were free to eat that. It was reserved for the priests. These Uncooked sacrifices, though, were also just part of an optional system that also included cooked sacrifices. And it's those that we begin to read about here in verse four. Here we read, now when you bring an offering of a grain offering, Baked in an oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers spread with oil. If your offering is a grain offering made on the griddle, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened, mixed with oil. You shall break it into bits and pour oil on it. It is a grain offering. Now, if your offering is a grain offering made into a pan, "'It shall be made of fine flour with oil. "'When you bring in the grain offering "'which is made of these things to the Lord, "'it shall be presented to the priest, "'and he shall bring it to the altar. "'The priest then shall take up the grain offering "'with its memorial portion, "'and shall offer it up in smoke on the altar "'as an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. "'The remainder of the grain offering "'belongs to Aaron and his sons, "'a thing most holy of the offerings to the Lord by fire.'" Fire. Now, why was there a difference between the cooked and the uncooked grain offerings? Well, the only thing we really know for sure is that it was just another option. Now again, you'll go to the commentaries and you'll hear people opining and conjecturing and offering suggestion after suggestion for why this was different and why that was different. And they'll try to, very often, they'll try to attach some mystical meaning to it all. They'll try to find some hidden thread between the lines of the text. Don't do that. We're not told. So the best that we can surmise from this is that these were just options given to the people for how to worship the Lord aright. Now you'll remember that the Israelites are encamped in a really large encampment, right? And what this means is that there would be people coming at various times during the day. There would be some who would arrive early, some who would arrive late, but the late comers would sometimes come from so far away outside the camp that they would prefer to cook their offering before they brought it. it was much more easily transported. It would keep longer and things of that nature. So there might have been some practical concerns as far as all that goes. But again, we really don't know anything more about that other than the shelf life might have been a consideration. Now, What we do know is that leaven was left out of these recipes. And we talked about this. We talked about this as early as the Israelites' preparation to leave Egypt during the Exodus. Remember, they were told to make haste, which meant they couldn't put leaven in their bread. And oh, by the way, leaven would later come to symbolize sin, impurity. And it really is. If you know anything about what yeast really is, yeast is really just a bunch of wee little nasties crawling around eating the ingredients that you put in the bread dough and they eat and then they expel the gas out of their little tiny bodies and that causes the bread to rise. I know it's gross, right? But it's also good. There's nothing better than a good fresh loaf of yeast bread or yeast rolls, right? We've come to love it. In spite of its obviously tainted nature, right? It's kind of like people who take probiotics. I mean, you're actually ingesting bacterium. You know, it's good bacteria, they say. I don't know much about that. The same thing's true about leaven. Leaven became a representation of sin itself. In other words, it was something added in that really didn't need to be added in, both for expediency's sake as well as for the fact that God demands that all things be pure. God doesn't want things that are tainted in any way, and so the fact that this would later become associated with sin was just another way of expressing God's desire for purity. his desire for absolute purity. Now, don't misunderstand this either. The Israelites had no real idea what any of this represented at this time. They're really not up to speed on the hows and the whys. They know what they're to do and they do it obediently and praise the Lord for their obedience. But up to this point, they really don't know why they're doing some of the things that they're doing. All they knew was that they were to be obedient in their preparation and offering of these sacrifices. As with the uncooked offerings, whatever was left over, again, it's the same thing. This was to be shared with Aaron and his sons. Now, note once again how Moses reiterates the importance of the grain offering. Having no leaven, this might seem like repetitive, but I want you to really focus in on this fact that Moses seems to be insistent every time he makes this command. You know, there are some people today, and this is really something that goes back to the regulative principle, you know, some people today have the attitude, well, if we were still making grain offerings, bread offerings, you know, what if I just stopped by H-E-B and got a loaf of leavened bread and brought it and that's the best I could do? Would God not accept that? You know, does God not accept our best? This goes back to that myth that, you know, as long as the native in the deep, dark jungle of the Amazon is faithful to that rock that he worships, as long as he's faithful in his worship to that rock, God will see his faithfulness and commend him to himself. That's just not true. No, again. Salvation comes through Christ alone, not through rocks. Salvation doesn't come through sincerity. Salvation comes through perfect obedience, which Christ did on our behalf, and God accepts nothing less. And so if you were to, you know, you would be an early pragmatist if you came in with a loaf of bread and expected God to accept it because that's the best that you can do. It's just not true. Moses is insistent on this idea of leaven being excluded, in verse 11 he says, no grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven. He's already said that a couple of times, but he wants to say it again. For you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by the fire to the Lord. Okay, now, in addition to leaven, he's including honey. Now what's wrong with honey? I mean, we love honey. But you want to talk about one of the more disgusting things that you put in your body. It's honey. I'm not going to go into all the details. Parents, explain to your children. Eat your honey. It's good. Especially local honey is good if you have allergies and things like that. God is, you know, wonderful in that he provides all of these natural remedies for us. Honey is also a very good preventative from infection. If you get cut or something like that put some honey on it and Chances are wrap it up really tight and chances are you'll not have an infection So there are good properties, but honey itself is kind of disgusting if you know how it's made Right. I was watching a show the other night on discovery or something about a rare soup in China that they That they eat And I think it's made out of bird saliva. No. I'm sure it's delightful, but no. And just coming off a stomach virus this past week, no, no. Right now I'm not feeling that at all. So we understand why leaven was not accepted because it represents impurity, but honey represented the same kind of impurity. Honey was something that, The Lord just did not want to be included in the sacrificial process. Scholars have struggled to understand exactly why that might be, but most of them agree that anything that was capable of fermenting was not to be used in the worship experience of the people. Why? Because you know the next stage beyond fermentation is what? rotting. Once it begins to ferment it goes past fermentation it begins to decompose and so you never knew what stage of fermentation you might be at and so it was better and again it's because God said not to. You just didn't put that in there. Now how could honey ferment? I've never heard of that really but apparently some of the things they would mix it with to increase its longevity and things like that obviously caused it to ferment in certain conditions. Some scholars have also suggested that leaven and honey were the two primary ingredients used in many of the pagan rituals around that timeframe and in that area. And I can certainly understand why God would exclude those on that basis alone. Don't be like the pagan nations who use fermentation and honey and leaven. Don't be like them. Follow my instructions, because this is how I separate myself from these false gods." I appreciate the insight offered by G. Campbell Morgan, If you're not familiar with G. Campbell Morgan, you should be. G. Campbell Morgan was actually the pastor at Westminster Chapel who preceded Martin Lloyd-Jones there. I think it was sometime around the beginning of of the Second World War that G. Campbell Morgan retired and Lloyd-Jones took over the pulpit at Westminster Chapel. But G. Campbell Morgan has written a lot of great commentaries, a very influential figure in 20th century Christianity in England and beyond. I will say this, he had some Arminian leanings, whereas Martin Lloyd-Jones was a purely reformed man, thoroughly reformed man. G. Campbell Morgan, not so much, but you can glean a lot from Morgan's writings. He's got some really fantastic commentaries, just like Linsky is helpful in the same way. But anyway, listen to what Morgan wrote. He said, As the burnt offering was to be without blemish, so the meal offering was to be without leaven. This meal offering was the work of men's hands, of the fruits of the ground, the result of cultivation, manufacture, and preparation, and it was the symbol of service offered. Therefore, it was not to be mixed with leaven. Why not? Because leaven in its very nature is corruption and its influence is corrupting. Whenever it's introduced, it sets up the work of disintegration and breakup. That's another consideration to think about. Whenever the leaven goes into the batter or the dough, It begins the process of breaking things down. That's really not representative of what the Holy Spirit does in us. The Holy Spirit builds us up. And so leaven, if you want to look at it in a really helpful way, leaven is the anti-spirit. Instead of building up, it tears down, it breaks down and replaces what it eats with gas. And so Morgan's on to something very important here. Nothing of that kind must be permitted in the symbol of service because God demands a perfect service as well as a perfect offering. Not only the gift, but also the deed must be without corruption. The application of the principle to ourselves is found when we turn to the New Testament and find what leaven symbolizes for us. Our Lord warned His disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The leaven of the Pharisees was hypocrisy, that is, of ritualism without spiritual and moral content. The leaven of the Sadducees was rationalism, that is, Herodianism or worldliness, the elimination of the supernatural. Paul speaks of the leaven of malice and wickedness as the opposite of sincerity, and truth. These, then, are the corrupting influences which are not to be mixed with our service. In all the work we do for God, there is to be an absence of hypocrisy, of materialism, of the Spirit, which is contrary to love and truth." This brought to mind what Jesus said to the woman at the well in John chapter 4. Remember when Jesus appeared there and began speaking to the woman, she wanted to argue, actually she wanted to deflect her rather confused marital status, she wanted to kind of do a little parrying with Jesus on the basis of religious tradition, and you'll recall that she said, our fathers say that it's in this mountain that we should worship, Mount Gerizim. Your people say that it's in this mountain that we should worship, Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb, right? And what did Jesus say to her? There's a time coming. when God will demand worship not from that mountain or that mountain, but God will expect us to worship in what? In spirit and in truth. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means without any admixture of anything. It means to worship God in as pure a fashion as we possibly can. Now, I want you to process that for just a minute. Think about all the things that we seemingly need in order to worship God appropriately. If I had a nickel for every time someone came to me in this church and said, what we need in this church is fill in the blank. If I had just a nickel, I'd be a very rich man. Why? Because people sense that we need more than we already have. And the truth of the matter is, folks, we don't need anything more than what you're experiencing at this very moment. Oh, but I wish we had this. I wish we would do that better. I wish we would do that more effectively. Well, first of all, who's the we? If you'd like to see that done more effectively, then do that more effectively. And if it catches on, then it was meant to be. Take the glomalial approach. If it catches on, it was meant to be. If it doesn't catch on, then chances are it wasn't meant to be, right? but we have people who are dissatisfied, discontent with the way things are, when in reality, in this body right now, I believe we come as close to worshiping God in spirit and in truth as we possibly can. We have the reading of the word, we have the preaching of the word, we have the singing of hymns, and we have the fellowship of the saints. We have hearts that have been transformed by the grace of God, all of us trying our best to work in unison together. to promote the kingdom and cause of Christ in whatever way we're gifted, uniquely gifted to do that. We have all the ingredients for this sacrifice of worship that God expects of us. We don't need to add anything into that. Now, would it be enjoyable to have this, that, or the other thing? Perhaps. I don't know, right? But I can tell you one thing, your three pastors in this place will never shortchange you with regard to the things that the scriptures themselves teach us are most important. Well, but I really don't like the way we do that. Well, I guarantee you the way we do things is the scriptural way. And if we're not doing it the scriptural way, if you have chapter and verse, if you have ecclesiastical precedent over centuries, bring it to us. We'll change post haste. We'll change today. If you can show us in God's word where we're not doing something we should be doing or where we are doing something that we should not be doing. But again, let your final arbiter of that be the word of God and not your opinion, not your feelings, Not tradition, not the way you've always done things. And I know tradition's a hard thing to master, right? But pastor, you don't understand my old church, we did it this way and I enjoyed it so much. Well, sorry? We're not your old church? Maybe. I don't mean to be insensitive, I'm just saying that focus on the things we can focus on. This woman at the well was focused on all the wrong things. Jesus drew her back to the central truth that God demands his worshipers to worship in spirit, that is from the inside out, and in truth, that is in accordance with what is written in his inerrant and infallible word, alone. We would do well to follow that model This afternoon or this morning before the 11 o'clock preaching, we're going to enjoy the Lord's table together as we do every last Lord's Day of the month. Let me just ask you, if you want to ensure that you're worshiping God or right, let me just ask you, having known that for the last month, Certainly the last week, it's probably crossed your mind that this is the last Sunday of the month. If it hasn't crossed your mind, then that's a problem in and of itself. But as we come to the Lord's table this morning, have you done what Paul exhorted the Corinthians to do in 1 Corinthians 11? Have you examined yourself? Have you sought the face of God? Have you asked God, God created me a clean heart? God, prepare my heart to do this blessed ordinance with the people of God. This very morning, I'm going to be approaching your throne of grace with my brothers and sisters. And Paul says that I'm to do this with a clean heart. Lord, clean my heart. Have you done that? Remove any obstacles, remove any ill feelings, remove any sin in my life. I would encourage you, if you've not done that already, start doing that even now. I don't care, you can skip the rest of the message, just take the time to get right with God. Because it might be that you're guilty of offering strange fire to Him. And if you come and partake of the Lord's table just for appearance's sake, oh, what will people think if I don't go up? Don't worry a bit about what people might think if you don't come up and partake of the elements. Worry about how the Lord might feel or the Lord might react in chastisement should you partake in an unworthy manner. Paul says in his day there were many who were weak, many who were sick, many who slept. They died. Oh, but God doesn't operate that way today, does he not? Is that a chance you're willing to take? Prepare your hearts even now. Remember what Paul said in Romans 12 one, that's also relevant to all of this. Every time we come here, as a matter of fact, every hour of every day, what are we to be doing? We're to be presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service. or as some translations have it, which is our duty in worship, our right heart attitude in worship. Are you doing that? This is the picture that's bound up in the specifics of the Lord's commands relative to these grain offerings. Verse 12. Another kind of offering is given as an option here. Remember, it's just an option. As an offering of the firstfruits, you shall bring them to the Lord, but they shall not ascend for a soothing aroma on the altar. Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt, so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt. And once again, we're confronted with this idea of the importance of first fruits. Remember in all of these grain offerings, whatever you brought was required to be the first of what you possessed. This means that it would be the most precious to you. This would be the items that you would be most reluctant to get rid of. Whenever you would go out and harvest the first fruits, the first fruits were always the best fruits. And instead of keeping those for yourselves and making another pass in your field, you would present those first fruits to the Lord. You would then go out and gather what was left for yourself. Now again, I want you to think about this in the context of worship. Not just in the context of giving, that's important too. Because the question needs to be asked, are you giving to the Lord and the work of the kingdom and cause of Christ in this place? Are you giving of your first fruits? In other words, is that the first check that you write? Or is it the check that you write once you've paid off all your other obligations? If the latter is true, you're making a grave error. just in principle. God wants the first of what you have. And the same thing comes to when you wake up every morning. When you wake up every morning, is the Lord your first priority? Or is it perhaps that dragon breath that you've accumulated over the night and you just can't wait to brush your teeth? Is it eating breakfast? Is it reading the news while you eat breakfast, then brushing your teeth, or whatever the case might be? Whatever the case, if you're placing anything before the priority that the Lord should be, you're making a mistake. Now, will the Lord strike you down for that? Probably not. I pray not, because it's so common. But might we do better to think in terms of giving God the first of everything? Think about how much better your day might be if you woke up and made a concerted effort to go to the Lord in prayer, immediately. Thank you, Lord. Well, I don't know what to, I can't even think straight when I wake up in the morning. Here's a good prayer. Thank you, Lord, for waking me up again. When's the last time you did that? or do you wait until you crash down in your bed at night after a hard day? Okay Lord, no. This first fruits is meant to be an abiding principle. It's meant for you to be able to carve out the first of everything and be willing to give it to the Lord. This also included the firstborn male of the flock or the herd as we discussed as well as these grains and vegetables that were to be offered. Is God treasured to that extent in your own life? Does God have that priority? I hope he does. Whenever we bring our gifts into the church, we should do so. And this is, again, it's not just money, it's not just prayer. This includes any gifts that we might have that would benefit one another. We need to make sure that we come here with the intent to worship God and serve one another. Not to be served. We've talked about that before as well. You know, you want to know the best preventative to the case of woe is me's that people often get in the church? Take out the me. Just leave yourself out of it. And ask yourself every Lord's Day morning, what can I do? What can I do to brighten someone's day in the Lord? What can I do to be a blessing to someone today and not myself? Sadly though, we come into this place routinely asking, how am I going to be blessed today? Right? Now I hope my gift blesses you. And I think it does in large respect, and praise the Lord for that. But you know, you guys should be blessing each other in the same ways. Maybe not in the exact same way, but in tangible ways. You wouldn't believe how effective it is to just walk up to somebody and say, hey, how's it going? You know? Or better yet, as we grow and continue to grow, hey, what's your name? See, some of you are laughing because you're nervous. I thought about playing a game one Sunday. I was gonna just pick a random person and say, what's his name? And then pick another random person to answer. Wouldn't that be fun? No? Okay. I'll scrap that for now. How can you pray for me if you don't know who I am? How can you minister to me if you don't care to know my name? Well, these first roots are very important as we can see, but what about this salt? Why salt the sacrifices? Well, salt, and I think we talked about this earlier in our studies of Exodus, but salt was that which symbolized preservation. In Virginia, we have a well-known delicacy called country ham, Virginia ham. It is salt-cured ham. And what salt does, when you submerge a big ham down into a vat of extremely salty water and then cover the outside of it with salt, the salt pulls out all the liquid. And the liquid is where all the little wee nasties grow, right? All the bacteria and such. Salt prevents that. Salt takes out all the water. Salt also kills the bacteria. And so you can get a country ham that's been salt cured. You can hang it in your barn for months and still eat it. because the salt has done such a good job. In this case, the reason you would salt your sacrifice is as an indication of the perpetuity of God's covenant with you and your intention to be as faithful to him as he's been to you. And so salt was to be added to these sacrifices to show the Lord, Lord, I am intent on keeping my end because I know you're going to keep your end of the bargain. What a beautiful thing. What a beautiful thing. Now, when did salt curing become a thing? Some people have said this is a bit out of place historically because surely they didn't know back then the curative properties of salt. They did. The earliest record we have of this is actually with the Sumerians in about 3000 BC. They were already salt curing their meats. And so they had an idea of what the preservative properties of salt were. Let's go on in verse 14. If you bring a grain offering of early ripened things to the Lord, you shall bring fresh heads of grain roasted in the fire, grits of new growth for the grain offering of your early ripened things. You shall then put oil on it and lay incense on it. It is a grain offering. The priest shall offer it up in smoke, its memorial portion, a part of its grits and its oil and with its incense as an offering by fire to the Lord. Salted meat and grits. Any question why the Lord favors the South? Okay, just kidding. Am I? Again, this is just another option for people to bring their sacrifices. You know, I love all these options, don't you? A lot of people read Leviticus and they say, oh no, here's another thing I have to do and another thing I have to do. No, understand God's giving the people options. How blessed is that, that He gives us options? You know why He gives them options? Because people are different. We're all different. And we all have different capabilities. We all have different senses of appropriateness in certain ways. God knows that although He does have one standard, and that's that all these offerings be offered in purity, not only in their contents, but in the attitude, in the heart behavior of the person making the offerings. God sees all that, but He also recognizes all people are different. Some people can do that, some people can't really do that effectively. Some people would love to do this more than they would love to do that, and so on and so forth. These things, I believe, represent what we call the normative principle of worship. God doesn't tell us how to collect an offering on Sunday. Whether you leave it in the box in the back, whether you leave it on the table up front, whether there's a plate passed around, whether you send it in, whether there's a kiosk where you can put your credit card, whatever the case might be, we're just not told. He doesn't tell us in what order we should sing our hymns. It doesn't matter to him. He doesn't tell us, for example, how we're to do a lot of things in the body of Christ. And so he gives us a variety of things to choose from, as long as those things don't stray from the regulative principle or impede upon the regulative principle. What we do at 945 every Sunday and 11 o'clock every Sunday should follow a strict set of guidelines, mainly because it keeps us from pragmatism. It keeps us from doing things that might be strange fire to the Lord. And we're gonna be extra cautious within those parameters because it's necessary. But everything else that we do, that's kind of open for interpretation and we're allowed to do it as we as a body see fit. But again, I want to remind you of how important it is that we have this regulation in scripture of the elements and the attitudes that are to be had in worship. Let me just read something to you as I close. Derek Thomas. another good Brit, writing for Ligonier Ministries. He wrote an article on the regulative principle, and I thought this was really helpful in case some of you are still kind of fuzzy on what the regulative principle might be, what it includes, what it doesn't include, why it's important. So let me just read this and then we'll disperse. Derek Thomas said, put simply, The regulative principle of worship states that the corporate worship of God is to be founded upon specific directions in Scripture. On the surface, it's difficult to see why anyone who values the authority of Scripture would find such a principle objectionable. And that's a thing to really think about, isn't it? Why would anybody be opposed to doing things the way the Bible says we're to do them? I'll tell you why. Because unlike at any other time in the history of this world, we have Subsequent generations of people coming up who have been catered to, they've had instant everything, everything is according to their felt needs and not according to their actual needs. The Bible addresses our actual needs. The Bible doesn't care how you feel. It just doesn't. I do. I care how you feel. I don't want anybody feeling bad. I don't want anybody feeling sad or sorry. I mean, we can rectify those things, right? But the Bible itself is God's objective word of truth regarding all things. Your feelings don't play into it. And neither does the worship that we are to maintain here. It can't play into how you feel. Now, there will be elements of worship that make you feel really good, right? Some of the hymns we sing, when we sing it as well with my soul, I mean, we raise the rafters in this place. And sometimes there's nary a dry eye in the place because people are processing that and it's really getting them right in the feels. That's not what I'm talking about. We don't do those things to elicit your feelings. We do those things in the regulative principle of worship. And if feelings come as a result of that, then well and good. But we're not going to cater to your felt needs. This is how you get rock concerts in the auditorium and strobe lights and fog machines and all this other stuff because people want to be entertained. And the church is the perfect venue to keep people entertained. That's not true at all. It's not true at all. Where was I? Is not the whole of life itself to be lived according to the rule of scripture? This is a principle dear to the hearts of all those who call themselves biblical Christians. To suggest otherwise is to open the door to antinomianism, that is, the idea that the law no longer applies to us, and license. That is that since the law has no bearing on me, I'm free to act any way I want to act, right? But things are rarely so simple, Thomas says. After all, the Bible does not tell me whether I may or may not listen with profit to a Mahler symphony, find stamp collecting rewarding, or enjoy ferret breeding as a useful occupation, even though there are well-meaning but misguided people believing, misguided Bible-believing Christians who assert with dogmatic confidence that any and all these things violate God's will. Knowing God's will in any circumstances is an important function of every Christian's life, and fundamental to knowing it is a willingness to submit to Scripture as God's authoritative word for all ages and circumstances. But what exactly does biblical authority mean in such circumstances? Well, Scripture lays down certain specific requirements. For example, we are to worship with God's people on the Lord's Day. We should engage in useful work and earn our daily bread. In addition, covering every possible circumstance, Scripture lays down a general principle. Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may by testing, discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Clearly, all of life is to be regulated by scripture, whether by express commandment or prohibition, or by general principle. There is, therefore, in one sense a regulative principle for all of life. In everything we do, and in some form or another, we are to be obedient to scripture. The Reformers, John Calvin especially, and the Westminster Divines viewed the matter of corporate worship differently. In this instance, a general principle of obedience to Scripture is sufficient. There must be and is a specific prescription governing how God is to be worshipped corporately. In the public worship of God, specific requirements are made, and we are not free either to ignore them or add to them. I think that's a good, succinct definition of what the regulative principle is. We're not allowed to have a free-for-all worship experience. Now, I'll say this. There are times when you might want to let your hair down and go to a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert and wave your hands around in the air like you just don't care and tap your toe and hum a tune. I won't begrudge you that, right? But you might also want to collect stamps and raise ferrets. Right? Ferrets are nice. We had a ferret for nine years. Her name was Princess. Anyway, all that to say that there are things that govern our lives, but none of those things from Scripture should govern us more closely than when we're meeting together for worship. Outside of the worship experience of God's people, you guys have consciences. You have the Holy Spirit indwelling you. You know what the Bible declares to be sin for yourself. Here's the thing, you know there are sins that might be sins to you and to no one else. We're told in scripture, for him who knows it to be sin, it's sin. Now I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole this morning, but there are other things that are definitively sinful. And let me just say this while I'm on the subject. You'll hear me talk a lot in broad generalities about certain things, things that might just drift over into an area where I find those things sinful. Don't let that, don't let my opinions about such things and my feelings about such things, I am only human. Don't let my feelings or opinions on those things either cause you to express angst against me, as we're gonna learn in the next hour. We're all works in progress. We're all at various stages of growth. There are weaker and stronger brethren, and the confusing thing about it is the weaker brother says he's the stronger one, and the stronger one says he's the weaker one. Whatever the case might, we don't know, right? But be a Berean. If you hear something, even by way of opinion, that you're like, no, that's not right, don't walk away mad. Don't walk away sad. Don't walk away with angst in your heart. Go to the scriptures. And if the scriptures tell you, if the Holy Spirit says, no, that's just Pastor Tim's little, he's got a little problem with that. Right? Just live and let live. Just leave it alone. Right? Is that a good? agreement to come to? If the scriptures read by you, taught to you by the Holy Spirit, convict you that that thing is not something you should be engaged in, it's sinful. If I'm not under the same conviction, you might want to pray for me. If you're that convinced, Lord, I pray that everybody would reach this same conviction. But the conviction has to be from Him. Otherwise, what do you have? Legalism. And that's not gonna do anybody any good, right? There are things clearly defined in scripture as sin, and we avoid them like the plague. But we all also have opinions, right? How many of you would love to be a ferret farmer? No, but what? Okay, Mia would love to be a ferret farmer, right? But other people find them disgusting. No, I'm not going to raise ferrets. How many like stamp collecting? Right? But some people do like stamp collecting. You see, we're all different in different ways. Don't call sin what's not sin, just because you happen to have an aversion to it. That's my whole point. And more on that in the hour to come.