that we could have a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ on this location, that we could today gather with our brothers and sisters, those believers in the Lord Jesus, to exhort and encourage one another. Grant that as we open thy word, that there will be words of help, words of grace for all our souls. Minister to us. give your Holy Spirit here in the pulpit. Fill me now, O God, with power for this task. And may there be showers of blessing to every soul, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Our text is back in Isaiah 32, verse 6. not a familiar verse, probably not a familiar chapter, but one that addresses the subject that we're coming to today, and that is Remedies to Reform Church Worship. This is a Reformation subject. We are coming close to Reformation time. In Protestant churches, God's people like to remember the stand of Martin Luther Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox and other reformers. And it's always a refreshing opportunity to remember what God has done to bring His people and His church out of darkness into the light of biblical truth. Today we come to this text. Just let's have a read at it. For the vile person will speak villainy. And his heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fill. This is the only time you'll find the word hypocrisy in the Old Testament. It is a different word from the New Testament word hypocrisy, which is play acting. The hypocrite in the New Testament Greek language is the play actor. Of course, you don't want that either. But this word hypocrisy in the Hebrew text refers to the vile and the foul, the unclean. And it is the introduction of the thing that God counts unclean into worship. Now I've got a couple of questions for you that might help us to get into this subject. What is the hardest material in all the world? Probably think of a diamond. That's because it's a girl's best friend. Now, scientists have come up with some compound methods of getting a substance that's even more hard than a diamond. And I didn't get this myself. Google helped me out here. And this substance is wurtzite boron nitride, 80% harder than diamond, the hardest material in the world. Now what is the hardest task in the world? I'm going to give this answer. Changing minds that are set in their ways. You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it to drink. John Calvin That reformer in the city of Geneva recognized how difficult it was to turn people from their former way of worship. And that's because our ways of worship, they get ingrained into the very neurons of our thinking. and we grew up with it. There's a mixture of emotions from nostalgia, tradition, loyalty to parents, loyalty to our past, our church identity. It's like the word Christmas. It evokes all kinds of emotions and memories, and some of them are very pleasant, and you don't want to tamper with it. Well, In every worshiper there are so many memories flooding through the mind and so many emotions taking over that it is a very difficult thing to change our mindset about worship. And that really was the battle of the Protestant Reformation when those reformers and preachers came to the Bible and they discovered what was pleasing to God and what God hated. And they wanted to change men from worship in hypocritical manner to worshiping God in ways that were in spirit and in truth. And we see how traditions have endured the generations. And the things that Calvin and these reformers battled, well, are still in the world today in our generation. A couple of years ago, I went into a Roman Catholic church in the center of Dublin. It was eight o'clock in the morning. The morning traffic was still bustling along the streets, and I went into that cathedral, and I just wanted to observe how things were being done. I didn't go into worship. I went in to observe. I waited and I saw a lady come in through the door, typical Southern Irish-looking lady with a warm coat and a purse in her arm. And in she came and she went directly to the dispenser of candles. I didn't take enough attention on how it worked. Did you have to drop the coin in? But she paid something. And then she stepped back and she knelt at a prayer stool and she looked up at this figure of a woman. Mary, I'm sure. I did not hear what she prayed, but I saw the surroundings of the church. I saw the water fountain with the holy water. I saw the confessional box. There was no priest in at that time, but all of those things were in place. As I went out the door again, there was a steady stream of people coming in. I conclude many of them were just doing the same thing as that lady I observed. We've got to realize today that religion has got a very long arm, and it reaches into the very psyche of nations and peoples, and to break them away from error, is a very difficult thing. Now Ireland has had many great preachers. John Wesley, the Methodist. J.N. Darby, the founder of Plymouth Brethrenism. Grattan Guinness of the famous Guinness family was a tremendous preacher. I would call him the Spurgeon of Ireland. I discovered this about him. The Daily Express wrote in 1858, Mr. Guinness preached yesterday in York Street Chapel. The attendance was greater than any former occasion. In the evening, it amounted to 1,600. And if there were a place large enough, five times the number would have been present. To hear this highly gifted preacher The interest which he has excited has daily increased and probably will continue during his labors in Dublin. And so in that land, yes, the land of my birth, the Methodists, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians have all built their churches and even schools to spread the light of the gospel. But as you know to this day, The false worship of Romanism still prevails to a very large extent. And we must realize the difficulty of reforming worship and changing hearts and minds to turn to the truth. Today, I want us to take a leaf out of John Calvin's book, I want us to take some remedies on how to reform worship in the Lord's church. Now, I'm not going to blast what other churches are doing. I'm interested in what we are doing. I'm interested in your worship, your relationship with God. I want to ensure as a pastor that what we do when you come through the doors of this church and you enter into worship here, that what we do from A to Z is truly pleasing to the Lord our God. and that we do not fall into this category of hypocrisy. Forbid that. So, let's take the first one, and I have a number of them, and I don't think I'll get preaching them all today, but I want us to begin with this one. God is to be worshiped in a scriptural manner. That is, worship by the Bible. Now let me take you into John Calvin's church in the city of Geneva. I want you to look at the walls around that church building, St. Peter's Cathedral it was called. I want you to see that on those walls there are no decorations, there are no visual aids to worship. I want you to see the layout of the church. benches, seats all around, as many as can fill the building, and then the simple pulpit in the center. I want you to see the face of John Calvin with that narrow chin and his arm outstretched as he is preaching the Bible. His way was going down verse by verse, read and comment, read and comment. And you can see the people filling their minds with this preaching of John Calvin every Sunday. and several days of the week when he lectured in the same manner, read and comment. He was expounding and explaining verse by verse out of the Bible to ensure that the people understood the meaning of God's Word. He did that so frequently that in his short ministry he covered every book of the Bible except Revelation. I'm not sure if that was because he died too soon or whether he didn't like to preach in Revelation. But it is significant that he does not have a commentary on that book. Now that, I cannot say, was the first church, Protestant Church of Geneva. There were other attempts at this. But as refugees came under the ministry of John Calvin, and as students came from other countries to hear God's reformer preach in this manner, Sundays and weekdays, and they learned the gospel ministry from him, that model of Geneva soon became multiplied in Switzerland, even in France for a period until persecution, in Holland, in Germany, Italy, England, Scotland, Wales, Europe now had many places where this manner of the Geneva pulpit was the method of preaching. Now some in their ministry consider zeal to be the only thing that's important to worship. There's a text in the Old Testament where a guy called Jehonadab, where he said, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. And what he went out and he went out and slew the enemies of Ahab. But some people say that's all you need, just zeal. Now no doubt, the Lord Jesus had zeal. He had so much zeal for the glory of the Lord that when he went to the temple, he cleaned out the money changers, drove them out from their materialistic practices in the house of God. Zeal isn't just a matter of doing your own thing. It is a zeal to purify. And then the apostle Paul, he talked about many who have a zeal without knowledge. What a danger that can be. What a problem that is in many circles. And I'm sure you could go to any number of religious centers and churches today, and you'll find great zeal. There's lots of noise. There's lots of energy. There's even a frenzy. But where's the knowledge, the truth of the Word of God? Now, no doubt man becomes very proud of his own devices in worship. There's an old ancient proverb that says, everyone thinks highly of his own. And when some people devise this or that, they say, well, this is the best, because it came out of their own way and thinking. But that's the danger. That's the danger. Would you, I'm going to turn you to a couple of passages in the Bible. I can't preach a message like this without giving you good, solid, biblical foundation. That's why I'm not going to get all of this message preached today, because we need to spend time in the Bible on this. Now, if you're a Bible lover, and you want your worship to be biblical, these verses are very, very important. The first one, 1 Samuel, chapter 15, verse 22. 1 Samuel 15, verse 22. And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice. and to hearken than the fat of rams." So you can see the issue here. Old Testament practices, ceremonies, sacrifices. And you can see that men did these things routinely. But if you're to do that and forget to obey the Lord, which is better? Well, Samuel lays it out. To obey is better than sacrifice. So you can have all the ceremonies and routines of religion, but to obey is the thing that pleases the Lord. Now, let's turn to Romans 1, verse 22. And here we see that man is inclined to bring into worship things of his own imagination, things that he comes up with himself, man-made commandment ceremonies. And we're told here in Romans chapter 1 verse 20 to 22, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. So every man has the knowledge of God, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. And this is the bent of human nature. We bring into our religion, our worship, those things of our own making, our own imaginations. Calvin said that man's heart is a veritable factory of idols and new ideas and ways to worship God. But they become the danger. and they become the very thing that lead to the hypocrisy that we read of in Isaiah 32 verse 6. An error. Let's go back to that verse. Let's just read that again. How important it is that we get a view of what the prophet says here. For the vile person will speak villainy, and his heart will work iniquity to practice hypocrisy. and to utter error against the Lord. Those are the things that we've got to weed out. Those are the things that we have to insist are not performed in the house of God. And as I say, this hypocrisy in Isaiah 32, it's not just the grandiose performance of worship, the dramatic thing. But it is the foul, the vile, the thing that God hates. And yet men bring that and they seem to use that to worship God. What an abomination! Idolatry, visual aids, making images, pictures of things that God has forbidden in His very law, His commandments. And yet across this country today and in churches that used to be Protestant but now are ecumenical and compromising to a new way of worship, these things are brought in. Drama, skits, other ways of worshiping God, things that cause error. So we need to check the Lord's Word and what is pleasing to God. The safest and the best is for us today in our worship is to think God's thoughts after Him. And that's why central to worship, if we go back to that Geneva model, if we see that church and we see that little pulpit and we see Calvin the Reformer, he's got his open Bible and he's pleading with the people, reading the Bible, commenting. reading, commenting, explaining, expounding. That was worship in the Genevan church at that time. And that was the remedy for false worship. That was the answer to clear out of people's heads, minds, and hearts all the error, all the vile things, all the idolatrous things, all the man-made imaginations, read and comment. Read and comment. And that's why when you pick up a volume of Calvin's sermons, they're a commentary to each passage of the Bible. And it gives you the sense of God's spirit and meaning in those passages. You see, the reality is we cannot trust our own hearts to worship God our own way. You get that? We cannot trust our own hearts, our own thinking, and our own devising as the way to worship God. We've got to come to this remedy to worship God scripturally. So whatever you're doing, whatever you're bringing into worship, would you please show me book, chapter, and verse in the Bible that that is well-pleasing to the Lord, the thing that He's commanded and that He delights in? and then we may worship God together. That is the remedy, and that is the answer, and hence the need for the sermon. A lot of people like worship, but they don't like sermons, especially long sermons. And that's why I'm going to divide this sermon in two today, because I know you don't want me to preach to 12 o'clock. I know that you don't want an overly long sermon today. We all have our limitations in how to drink in or receive the Word. And so the sermon is central. Once we deviate from that first principle, we begin to slide into man-made, self-made ways and means of worship. Number two, number two, God is to be worshiped in a simple manner, a simple manner. Now in Geneva, worship was simple. There was psalm singing, there was prayer, there was preaching, there was the administration of two sacraments, there was baptism, and there was the Lord's supper, the breaking of bread and the use of the cup. That was the end, the limit of symbolism, and those things are God-ordained in the Bible. Water baptism, whatever the mode, whatever the method, communion, the bread and the cup. That's the end of the symbolism in the church. And each of these, of course, were taken right out of the Bible. And each of them were administered with teaching and preaching. One of the principles of the Reformation was that no ceremony, no sacrament, no ordinance of the church should be administered without the preaching of God's Word to expound and explain what that was all about. And so I can see John Calvin standing at the communion table of the church. Around him are the elders. And there was, in the midst of that, a passionate prayer for God's blessing. Now, in his prayer, there was no strange language, no Latin. This was the French-speaking part of the world. They did not introduce another language so that the people could hear in their own tongue the message of God's Word and understand what it was about. There were no genuflections. There was no adopting of the Roman church, the medieval times, of some mystical drama where the priest was now the one in a performance before God. None of that. No wafers. There was no holding up of the bread or a wafer and calling it the host and referring to it as the very body of Jesus Christ. No claim of a miracle that the bread was the body of Jesus or that the cup was now the very literal blood of Jesus. None of that. It was kept simple. Now this is remembrance with a dependence upon the Holy Spirit to take these simple means, these simple objects, and apply them to the heart of God's people in a spiritual manner. And so Protestantism was born on the truth that there is one sacrifice, that's Christ. And it happened once. That was at Calvary. And it's never to be repeated. And so in the Reformation they came to the point, this is not a sacrifice. This is a way of remembering. And we depend on the Holy Spirit to take that message and apply it to the heart. I cannot be a hundred percent sure that there were no crosses. That's a bit of a debate in the Reformed movement. But what I am a hundred percent sure of, there were no crucifixes where there was a dead image of a dead Savior on a cross. That was abhorrent to the Reformers, and they knew it was abhorrent to God. When they called the congregation to look unto Jesus, they did not hold up a crucifix for people to look at. They pointed them to Calvary. to the statements that Christ died for us, for our conversion and salvation. Or they pointed them to the man at God's right hand, now resurrected, glorified at the Father's right hand. And this simplicity of worship was the remedy to false thinking and hypocrisy. The Lord Jesus has a part in this, indeed a very big part in this. He said in Matthew 15, but in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Now the Lord Jesus addressed that to the Pharisees, to the leaders of the Jews of his day, because they had added and added and added to Jewish worship that it became so added that the reality was buried under a burden of men's commandments. And so in light of our Lord's teaching in Matthew 15, John Calvin, he said, ceremonies are a mockery to God. Oh, if only men in the world today could hear that and grasp that. Ceremonies are a mockery to God because they bring in man-made inventions and so on. Now, in the New Testament, after the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus and that New Testament church was established, they, in the first century, had a very simple manner of worship, and I want to prove that today. I don't want you just to hear me. I want you to turn to Colossians chapter two and to verse 15. What was the manner of worship in the early church, first century, while the apostles were still alive? And here is the apostle writing to the Christians at Colossae. And in chapter two, verse 15, He begins to expound, and we're gonna call this passage the simplicity of worship. Remember what Jews had done? They had all their Sabbaths, they had all their routines, they had their festivities, ceremonies galore. And here the apostle is teaching these Christians and having spoiled principalities, verse 15. Spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. So that's the cross work. That's what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And because of what he accomplished in the cross, notice how the apostle goes on to emphasize this. Let no man therefore. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, spoiling principalities, taking away these empty things let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink or in respect of an holy day or of the new moon or of the sabbath days now i have to point out sabbath days there is not the one day in the week principle But the festivity, the jubilee days, and those special Sabbaths that entered into the Jewish calendar, they were holy days and holidays, festivity days, they were special occasions. And he said, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. Now, what do you do with a shadow when the person appears. You're studying a shadow and you see it moving along and then the person comes into sight. Do you keep still looking at the shadow? That would be offensive. No, you don't keep your eye on the shadow, you get your eye on the real person. And all of those traditions, all of those feasts and holidays and special Sabbaths and Jubilees, all those things were to be ruled out. in the past. Now, they're there for us to study. We learn certain things from them, but we don't practice them anymore because the shadow has given away to the real person the body is of Christ. That's the liberty we have. That's the freedom we have. And, verse 18, Paul says, Let no man beguile you, of your reward and a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels. Now here are the things that men would bring in. You need to worship angels. Christians should worship angels. Paul says, no, don't allow that. Don't even begin that. And you remember how in the revelation, one fell down before an angel and the angel says, don't worship me. Don't worship me. Worship God alone. intruding o'er to those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the head, from which all the body by joints and bands of nourishment ministered and knit together increases with the increase of God. Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances? Jewish ordinances, Old Testament ordinances, Levitical ordinances. Why, if ye are living in Christ, are you even burdened by those things? Touch not, taste not, handle not. That was the burden. You remember the criticism that the disciples received when they walked through the field of grain and they plucked some of the corn. touch not, handle not, taste not, all of those things that were the commandments of men that burdened people. And then verse 22, which are all to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men. They're man-made. They begin with men. They continue with men. They're doctrines of men, which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship. People feel good about this. They want to do it. They get excited about these things. And humility and neglecting of the body, that would be fastings. And all those things that became a burden to people in worship, not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh. So you can see the simplicity now. In the New Testament church in the early century, worship was done simply. And they got done with those things that were such a burden to them. Circumcision, incense from Levitical worship, priestly ceremonies, Sabbaths, holy days, feasts, calendar dates, all of these were no longer a part of New Testament worship for New Testament Christians. And that was the controversy in the church at times. What do we keep and what do we throw out? And Paul said to the Christians at Galatia, stand therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free. Circumcision was the issue in that one. Stand in the liberty. Don't go back to practicing those things again. And so the New Testament Christians were set free from all of these practices. Now, you would say, who would ever go back to that again? Well, enter the Dark Ages. enter the hundreds of years that these ceremonies and pagan ceremonies were added to the things of Christianity. And in the medieval church, the people were being burdened again with holy days and fasts and penances and afflictions and even monasteries and places where people were shut away from society. It became burdensome. priests—that had been done away—saints—well, there was never before a practice of worshiping saints—seven sacraments instead of two, Mary worship, rosary beads used in prayer to saints and to Mary, and all these holy days that were introduced in the medieval church. commandments of man, burdensome. This simplicity gave way to a cumbersome, burdensome way of worship. The very thing The Lord Jesus warned against the commandments of men. The very thing the New Testament church protested against, stand free in the liberty with Christ, has made you free. And then comes along John Calvin, and he in the 1500s, and he takes his stand in Geneva, and he calls the people to worship, no longer under these burdensome things, but in simplicity, and he makes this statement. man-made add-ons are mockeries to God. And he called the people back to the simplicity of worship. Not only were they burdensome, cumbersome, but they were, many of them, borrowed right out of paganism. Mother-child worship goes away back to Babylon. Beads, saint worship, were all kinds of little gods that were renamed and brought into the system of worship. And throughout Europe, people were under an awful burden and bondage. But when the preaching of the Bible came, It called people to simplicity of worship. The Bible, preaching, prayer, praise. No visual aids, no pictures, no icons, no saints, no feasts that are mandatory. We all love our food. We all love those special occasions, even in church life, where we have our dinners and events where we enjoy food. But they don't become mandatory. They don't become the only way to be blessed, not at all. They are contrary to the preaching of repentance and humility. And so all of those things were swept away. The Protestant church was born and it was duplicated here and there across Europe and around the world. As I said earlier, the arm of religion is very long, and we're in the same battle today for simplicity of worship. You go to churches today and you'll find many extraneous things that have been brought in. Our battle is to purify the church, keep it clear of encumbrances, let the preaching of God's Word be central, and pray for the sermon that we can do, read, comment, explain, expound. And when God speaks to you through His Word by His Spirit, that's worship at its highest degree. I trust He has done so today. I trust this text of Isaiah 32.6. has become a word of help and warning that we worship God acceptably according to His Word. May the Lord bless His Word today. We have a closing hymn today. We have a word we're going to sing. 392. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. 392 Shall we stand to sing, please? Yeah. Yeah. Our Father, we praise Thee today for the light of Your Word. for the clear examples we have of that purity to which you call us in worship. Thank you, Lord, for your Word. Thank you for our Lord Jesus. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for salvation by the blood of Jesus alone. Thank you for those who have contended for these things and for the blessing you have made your church around the world. O Lord, let us continue in Your fear and with Your power upon us. Bless all who are here today. Make us each true worshipers of our Lord Jesus. And now bless us and dismiss us with Your grace. May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with Thy people now and evermore. Amen. Amen.