Well, this is kind of the practical section of what we want to do. I sought to establish the principle this morning that we are to do and worship those things that God reveals to us in His Word, and we're only to do those things, and we're to do all those things. But how do we determine what those things are? Now, a little bit of background, if we were going through the course, we would have in the previous section dealt with what is referred to as circumstances and forms of worship. Now, one of the ways that some of the modern teachers on worship are confusing people is by confusing circumstances and elements. So I just want to define our terms. The elements are those things that we're offering to God in worship. Those are the things that we must have biblical warrant for doing. Circumstances are the things that enable us to offer those things to God in worship. So they are the standing around, circa stanzio, the things that are standing around. What kind of building are we going to have? How are we going to arrange the seating? How long is the service going to be? What time is the service going to start? Are we going to use a hymn book? Are we going to put the hymns on an overhead projector? All the types of things that will change from place to place, century to century, are circumstances of worship. Which hymn book to use? all those types of things. And those are things that we learn from the Bible, are not commanded by the Bible, because as one of the old writers said, there'd be no way to have all the books that the church had needed already for 2,000 years, and all the different cultures where church is found. And so in fact, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, when it introduces the principle for the first time that the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man, salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word, And that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed. So just as if you were a member of Kiwanis or whatever, garden club, you would have things necessary to common actions of societies. If a group gets together, there's certain things that must take place. a place, keep them out of the elements if there's elements involved, times, the general ordering of such a group. And that's what's meant here. And so the Bible doesn't reveal those things explicitly, but notice that there are careful guidelines that are given. It must be, by the light of nature, things that are common to societies as they gather. Christian prudence, in other words, the elders need to have reasons for what they do, that it cannot be arbitrary, but there needs to be sound, wise pastoral reasons. I'll give you an example. When I pastored in Houston, there was the only church of that denomination that was outside of the Midwest and the Michigan area and whatever, and it was a Reformed church. And they had their morning service, and then they had an early afternoon service, which makes good sense if you're in a farming community where men have to milk or feed their livestock or whatever. It made no sense whatsoever in Houston, Texas, where their congregation's drive time was probably, average drive time was probably 45 minutes. And so you get home, turn around, you come back. for the afternoon service. But that had always been their tradition. Still is. And in some of the Dutch churches, that still kind of thing can go on. And there was no wisdom involved in what was done. So the elders had the freedom to say, we're going to worship at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock or whatever. But was that a wise thing to do in that situation? That's what it means by that. And the general rules of the word, it must not work against the principles of Scripture and the things that we are doing. And then one other added thing, it must not be something that can be determined from Scripture. So those are circumstances. And they do not have a necessary biblical, they don't have a biblical warrant for these things outside the fact that we are to do them. Then forms of worship are the content of the service. So the scripture that we read, our prayers, our hymns, our psalms, those are all what have been considered historically the forms of worship, the content of the element. And of course, the content must always be scriptural. I believe in singing hymns as well as psalms, but if we sing a hymn, the hymn must be biblically accurate and faithful. Our prayers must be biblically accurate and faithful. And, of course, our preaching must be biblically accurate and faithful. So those are forms. And so we're talking about elements as the matter of the regular principle of worship. So if we're convinced of the principle, we then come to the issue, well then how do we determine as New Testament Christians what God has revealed in his word? Now a popular Reform writer who's written on worship says it's very difficult to do that. The Bible doesn't give us a directory for worship and we just kind of leave it to the wisdom of the elders. But that's where he conflates circumstances and elements. In fact, is the Bible clear about the elements of worship? And I think it's very clear. James Bannerman, who wrote two volumes on this, and by the way, they've been recently republished by Banner of Truth, and they're well worth having. It's a simple title, The Church of Christ. But it's been published now in one volume by Banner of Truth. The scriptures are the only rule for worship, as truly as they're the only rule for the church in any other department of her duties. So whatever the church is doing, scripture is the only rule, and the scriptures are sufficient for that purpose. For they contain a directory for worship, either expressly inculcated or justly to be deferred from its statements, sufficient for the guidance of the church in every necessary part of worship. So James Bannerman, a Scotsman in the 19th century, said that the scriptures are sufficient and it can be done. Now, for the most part, it's quite clear, unmistakable, what the elements are. And there's two primary principles by which we derive them. Explicitly stated, is the confession of faith says, are inferred by good and necessary consequence. I need to stop a minute and define that for you. It's basically if A is true and B is true and C is true, then A, B, and C must follow. So take the doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is not in Scripture anywhere else spelled out as it is so wonderfully spelled out in our Reformed creeds and confessions. But it's true because the Bible says that God is one God. And the Bible teaches us that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, and they are the same in substance and power. And so the inference is the doctrine of the Trinity. There's one God who exists in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and these are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. That's the Westminster Shorter Catechism definition of the Trinity. Turretin said that a doctrine rightly inferred by inference or consequence is as binding as one explicitly stated. Christ uses the same principle with the Sadducees when they wanted to trick him up about the resurrection of the story of the brothers who all had the same wife, no children, whose wife was she going to be in glory. And he says, you've not understood the Scriptures are the power of God. And the power of God, he says, will be like angels. We will not marry or procreate in heaven. But for Scriptures, remember where he takes them? He took them to Exodus 3. He said, have you not read that God said, I am the father, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then Jesus infers he's the God of the living and not the dead. That's an inference, you see. If God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he says that to Moses, all those three men terms of their physical life were dead, that means they were still living in the presence of God. Now, he could have used other scriptures. He used that passage because the Sadducees didn't accept anything but the first five books of the Bible. And you notice he silenced them with that. And the inference is powerful. So there's two ways. And so we have explicit revelation of the word of God, what we do. And most of what we do in scripture does come from explicit revelation. And then we have inference, which I will subdivide into two parts. Either good approved examples or doctrinal consequences. Both those things, in a sense, are inferential. We have to decide what is an approved example and what isn't approved example. Any questions up to this point? This is Sunday school, so you can ask me questions, which means I can ask you questions as well. Yes, so that's chapter one, paragraph six. Okay, we begin in the Old Testament to look what God revealed there. And in the Old Testament, God was worshipped in two places, right? once corporate worship began, when it moved from household into public assemblies. He was worshipped in the tabernacle temple complex, but he was also worshipped, as I said last night, in all of the towns and villages of Israel. And that's an inference, but it's a pretty clear inference because we're told in Leviticus chapter 23 when God reveals the various Sabbaths, the weekly Sabbath, he says in verse 3, for six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work, it's a Sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings. You see, they had to meet for public worship, that's what a holy convocation is, in every place that they lived. So it was obviously a place where they met, and in the Psalms, when the psalmist is mourning the destruction of the land at the hands of the Babylonians, amongst other things that they mention there is that They burned down all the meeting places of the land, verse 8, Psalm 74, 8. They said in their heart, let us completely subdue them. They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land. And so when the synagogue was kind of formalized during the exile, it wasn't something new. They simply took what they had in all their cities and villages and continued the practices in the synagogue. So we can basically say we've got the temple pattern of worship and we've got the synagogue pattern of worship. And what we have to decide in the New Testament is, what do we take out of the temple? And the simple answer to that is we take those things that were broader than temple worship, or put it negatively, we don't do the things of temple worship that were tied to the priesthood and the Old Testament cult that pointed forward to the Savior who was to come. But the synagogue took out of temple worship the things that were universal. The synagogue didn't do anything that was not in the temple. It just couldn't do everything that was in the temple. You see the difference? So the synagogue, you couldn't have sacrifices and all those types of ceremonies connected to the temple. Priests weren't necessary, you had elders, you had Levites who were teaching the people, but there was no priestly function to the synagogue. So all priestly functions were performed only at the temple. But the basic things that continue in the church are the things that continue into the New Testament, and we could simply summarize that as the word, prayer, singing. We don't have a clear example, but because of the Psalter and the role of the Psalms in the life of the people, we believe that they sang use of creed, offerings, things such as that. And the synagogue is important because it shows us the transition. It helps us to determine what has abiding significance and what was fulfilled in Christ. And of course, when we get to the New Testament, we have the apostles and Christ using the synagogue, but we also see them doing in the synagogue the very things that are continuing now in the New Testament church. So we go temple, synagogue, New Testament. And the synagogue is very important because it helps us determine what was New Testament or what was explicitly only Old Testament and what is to be New Testament as well. come then to apply the principle, we've got that pattern, so we've got these things, and we then seek to apply the principle. Now, overall, you see the Westminster Confession of Faith, we'll come back to that. Acts 2, 42 and 47 is the passage that we started with this afternoon that describes the early church. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, there's Scripture and instruction, and to fellowship, which that's unpacked, that would be diaconal, the offering and such as that, the breaking of bread, the one sacrament put for the two, and prayer that really encompasses all of worship, as well as the particular parts of prayer that are offered in worship. So there we have an outline of what was being done in worship. Now, the Western Confession, and that would be the back of your hymn book, chapter 23, 21, Say again? Page 860. 860. Paragraphs 4 and 5. I don't know what 2133 means. It's paragraphs 4 and 5 of chapter 21. Now, prayer is to be made for things lawful, for all sorts of men living or that shall live hereafter, but not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned, the sin unto death. The reading of Scripture with godly fear, the sound preaching, preaching is an act of worship, and I told you last night, the conscionable hearing of the word, careful listening to the preaching is an act of worship, and obedience unto God, and how do you do that? With understanding, faith, and reverence. Singing of psalms with grace in the heart, as also the due administration and worthy receiving of the sacraments instituted by Christ are all parts of the ordinary religious worship of God. Beside, religious oaths, vows, solemn fastings, thanksgivings upon special occasions, which are in their several times and seasons to be used in a holy and religious manner. Now that's not necessarily exhaustive, because when you go to the Westminster Directory of Worship, they add, for example, the call to worship, the benediction, and offerings in some form. Nor do I take this, as we'll see in a moment, singing of psalms to be exclusive, but inclusive. And we'll unpack that in just a minute. So as we work our way then through scripture, we come up with scriptural patterns. And one of the other things that's very important in doing this exercise is what we call looking at the history of the doctrine of the church. We don't do our study of scripture in a vacuum. And so Calvin, for example, went back and studied how the early church, for example, we have in the church fathers pretty much the basic liturgy that was used by Justin Martyr about 180 AD. And when I used to teach church history, I would actually, this was pre-PowerPoint days, I would take two overheads. I'd have an overhead that would have Justin Martyr's liturgy, and I'd put over that Calvin's liturgy. And you can see that Calvin was clearly looking at how the early church understood the use of these elements. In fact, there's an excellent book called The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship. patristic roots of Reformed worship that shows how the Reformers made use of the early church fathers. So, one other thing to say before we look at the particular elements is that, for the most part, in Reformation churches, there is great unity. There's really very few things about which we would disagree. One would have to do with the place of the offering. Do you put it in the service or outside the service? The other, do we use Psalms exclusively or inclusively? and really outside of that. Now, you'll also find some differences, particularly in the Scottish churches, where the worship is much more bald. And for some reason, the Scottish Presbyterian Church that had Knox's liturgy, that was a very full, orbed liturgy, patterned after what Calvin did in Geneva, very similar to what is used in the churches from the Dutch Reformed background, They followed the independence of the Westminster Assembly. He wanted to take everything out but singing, praying, and preaching. And so they got rid of the creed and any kind of form of prayer. You know, Calvin used what we call a common prayer for confession. A common prayer is the congregation praying a prayer together that'd be printed in the service bulletin or whatever. And so they took those things out. But that's where the other area of different lies, and that is how we organize our worship. And again, at that point, there is more, again, these are forms, and there is going to be a liberty there. The Bible doesn't give us an order of worship. Bible gives us some principles, and I think the more we apply those principles, the more rich and full biblical worship is. And if there's time remaining, I'll give you at the end just what I teach our students, so you'll get some idea of a liturgy that I think reflects both the history of Calvinistic worship and a meaningful worship now. But when we find disagreement with people, The thing we want to avoid doing is saying, you must not hold to the regular principle. There's some psalm singers that say that to us. That kind of cuts off all communication, doesn't it? Rather than saying, we both hold to this principle, we're both searching Scripture, we don't agree yet, but we'll keep studying and praying together. And that is to be our approach always to any matter where we would have biblical differences with other people. I have a student who I'm very close to has become committed to exclusive psalmody. And it grieves me, but when I pray for him, I first pray that God will bring him back to his senses. But then I pray, but Lord, if I'm wrong, show me. You see? I'm close to being perfect, but I might have some errors in my thinking. And that's how we approach these things. If I'm wrong, show me. If he's wrong, show him. I believe he's wrong. Here's why I believe he's wrong. But we want to learn. We want to keep seeking the mind of Christ. All right. Let's go to slide one. And here are the elements of worship. And the first is the word of God. And we recognize that we are to use the word in a number of ways, and as we go through this, you can, if you want to keep your bulletin in front of you, we'll see some of the ways there as well. All right, of course the word is to be read. First Timothy 4.13, until I come, give attention to the reading, and that word is primarily translated the public reading of Scripture. It's important to understand that the reading of Scripture is an act of worship. This is why, again, I teach the students, don't simply read your text. I did that this morning. I wouldn't normally do that. Normally, we had read the law. And that's why I didn't think I needed to go back. In the Reformed tradition, particularly in the Presbyterian part of it, there was always extra scripture reading. In fact, it's taught in the Westminster Directory of Worship. And they read consecutively through the Old and New Testaments. which was very ideal if you're in a mission situation or where there's a lot of people that have come out of biblical literacy, that's a good pattern. I encourage people to use what I call the biblical theological reading. So if I'm preaching through a New Testament book, then the other reading will come out of the Old Testament. It parallels something of what's being said, and then vice versa. So at night, if I'm preaching the Old Testament book, the other reading comes from the New Testament. We ought to read much more scripture in our worship service than we do. And of course, preaching, it's precepts that we read. It's precepts that we preach. 2 Timothy 4, 1 through 5, and 1 Timothy 4, 13. Those two are up there. And then recited. that the recitation of the Word of God, and we get this now by inference and example from the Psalms. For example, Psalm 136 as an antiphonal psalm. And you need to understand the Psalms were not written just for singing, they were written for praying and for verbal use in the corporate assembly. And so there's nothing wrong with the congregation together if you have a responsive reading or a unison reading of Scripture, as long as you're not doing that to create participation. As we saw last night, that's not our goal. You're participating if one person's reading Scripture and the rest are following. And then confessed. The Scriptures are to be confessed. Second Timothy 1, 13, and 14 lay out the biblical basis for making creeds and confessions, and that's the precept. The good and necessary inference through approved examples shows us the use of that in worship. So Deuteronomy 6, we have the first public confession, the great Shema used for the first word of 6.4, Hear, O Israel. That's used today. Every time the synagogue meets, they open with that. And that is very good to see the use of a confession. We have confessions in the New Testament. 1 Timothy 3, a great confession in verse 16 about the incarnation. Now the word says this is a common confession. That word doesn't mean confession as we use it, but it's confessively true. But it's still put in a very stylized form to show that it would have been used in that manner. So we have the inference assumed example that we do as you use the Heidelberg Catechism, that we use creeds, and as you say in your bulletin, we use the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, we use the Reformed standards as part of our worship revealed by God. We have the call to worship. Again, we have the inference from the fact that so many of the Psalms are plural, as we saw last night, commandments to the church to worship. And thus the early church and the Reformation church took that, this is what's assembling us in the presence of God. And I'm glad you used both the call to worship and the vodum and the salutation. The vodum is that vow that we take as the people of God. That the Lord, here it is for the Lord. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. It used to be that Presbyterians had the call to worship, and the Continental Reform had the vodum and salutation. I teach both, and I was so pleased this morning to see the pastor here use both. I think there are three very important elements that work together. God summons us with the call to worship. We then come into His presence taking this vow, vodum, vow. It's a scriptural statement. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. And God greets us. You see what that does for worship when you start thinking about the dynamic that's taking place? There's nothing cold and impersonal. God summons us, we come into his presence conscious of our dependence on him, and he greets us. And we get that greeting out of the apostolic epistles. There's only about three epistles that don't have some type of greeting. And so the early church borrowed that right out of the Pauline epistles. It's just another use of scripture. And then the benediction. Again, the great one that I used this morning from number six. The other most used one is the one that was used last night, 2 Corinthians 13 verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, love of God the Father, fellowship of the Holy Spirit. But the pistils are full of benedictions. And we should use some of the others as well. Communion often uses the one out of Hebrews. May the God of peace who brought up the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep. But we're going to come to doxologies. There's two doxologies in the New Testament. They're not benedictions. They're often used as benedictions, but the end of Romans and the end of Jude, because they start out with reiterating a blessing on the people of God. People confusingly think that what we have here are benedictions, and they're used as such. But when, in fact, if you look at Romans, 16, verse 25, notice how it begins, Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret long ages past, now manifested to the only wise God. Doxologies are almost always in this third-person form, addressed to God in the third person, now to Him. And so I'm going to talk in a minute about the use of doxologies, but they ought not to be used as benedictions. The other one then that's often used as a benediction is Jude. Verse 24, because again it talks about something God does for us, now to Him who's able to keep you from stumbling and make you stand in His presence. to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time now and forever. Amen. So we'll talk about doxology in a minute, but stick to benedictions and don't confuse them with doxology. So that's the use of the word. And for all of these, for benediction, we have example and inference. For the votum and salutation, example and inference. Call to worship. inference, confession, precept, and inference, Bible recited example, and of course preaching and read, we have precept. So you look through your bulletin, you see this is why you're doing these things, not because the RCUS has done them for all these decades, and before them the German reform and all of that. No, they did it because it was scriptural, and that's why you must be doing it. You must be convinced of that. Well, we can go to the next area. and this is the various forms of prayer. We get the outline for prayer in the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer actually will include all the parts of prayer. So we have God adored, thanked, we have kingdom petitions, we have personal petitions, we have petitions for sanctification, we have the confession of sin. And the prayer life of you as an individual, the prayers of corporate worship, the prayers of the Congregational Prayer Meeting need to include these elements of prayer in our worship. So we've got some examples. Philippians 4, 6, and 7, a commandment. Ephesians 6, 18 through 20, a commandment. Acts 2, 42, the example of the early church. But let's look a little more at the types of prayer. And so we know that we've got praise and adoration, and this is really a lacking part in our prayers, privately, but also in corporate worship. Maybe it works the other way around, because it's such a small part of corporate worship, God's people are not learning how to pray properly. we should come into His presence, extolling Him, expressing our love and adoration to Him, expressing His greatness and His beauty and His honor and His glory. And so our praying should begin with praise and adoration. And Hebrews 13, 15 tells us that we are to worship Him with the sacrifice of our lips. Very interesting, I just came across something this past week Verse 15, through him then let us continue to offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. And in Hosea 14.2, I think is the place I want, I wasn't planning on doing this so I didn't mark it. Hosea comes right after Daniel. Take words with you to return to the Lord and say to him, take away all my iniquity. But earlier in Hosea, that's what I want, is 6.6. I had not remembered this expression, but it's really what Hebrews has in mind. Well, no, I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings, but there's actually an expression here of, and it's in my other Bible, this is my travel Bible, that actually talks about bringing to God the offering of our lips. Huh? Ah, it is there, okay, thank you. He doesn't need it. Yeah, it was in 14.2. So there it is, the fruit of our lips. That's the phrase that I am looking for. And that goes back to Hosea 6.6 and then Hebrews 13.15. And so it's actually an Old Testament expression that we have. And so, again, when people say, well, you know, the New Testament just talks about life as worship because it uses cultic language to describe these personal acts of devotion. Well, we see, in fact, that comes right out of the Old Testament. A, but B, it's in a corporate context. that the writing of Hebrews is using this particular expression anyway, and that is in corporate worship. So we are to praise God. That's the sacrifice of our lips. Now connected to praise and adoration, but a distinct form, is the doxology. And this is probably one of the most missing forms of prayer in both our private prayers and in our corporate prayers. Now, you sing the doxology at the end of the service, and that is very good. It's a good place to use the doxology. But there's two here from Paul, 1 Timothy 1, 17, 6, 15, and 16. I just took you to Romans 16. and Jude 25. Doxology has a particular form. It is in the third person, addressed to God. It lists one or more of his attributes, usually ascribes eternity to him, and has an amen at the end of it. So how does the Lord's Prayer conclude? I think in the, it's not in all the manuscripts, but I think it's the proper ending of the Lord's Prayer. To whom, you see it's in the third person, be glory, honor, and dominion forever and ever, amen. That's the four forms of a doxology. And when's the last time you concluded a prayer with a doxology? Or use doxology in your praise of God? I use it both in opening prayers and trying to learn to use it in the concluding of a prayer, because we have clear biblical warrant example for doing such. Of course, we've got Thanksgiving, another often missing part of our prayers. Psalm 95, 2, 1, 16, 17. Hebrews, again, 13. Confession, Psalm 51. We sang Psalm 32 this morning. Again, we've got a precept. There's this great quotation from Calvin about corporate confession. It comes out of the Institutes. Besides the fact that ordinary confession has been commended by the Lord's mouth, no one of sound mind who weighs its usefulness can disapprove it. For since in every sacred assembly we stand before the sight of God and the angels, what other beginning of our action will there be than the recognition of our own unworthiness? But that, you say, is done through every prayer. For whenever we pray for pardon, we confess our sin, granted. But if you consider how great our complacency, our drowsiness, or our sluggishness is, you will agree with me that it would be a salutary regulation if the Christian people were to practice humbling themselves through some public rite of confession. For even though the ceremony that the Lord laid down for the Israelites was part of the tutelage of the law, still the reality underlying it in some manner pertains to us. And indeed, we see this custom observed with good result, I love this, in well-regulated churches. That every Lord's Day, the minister frames the formula of confession in his own and the people's name. And by it, he accuses all of wickedness and implores pardon from the Lord. In short, with this key, a gate to prayer is opened both to individuals in private and to all in public. So again, the public confession of sin, even more separate from, I like to separate it from the prayers of petition and sanctification, supplication, that's Institutes Book 3, Chapter 4, Section 11, Book 3, Chapter 4, Section 11, to have a separate prayer. Calvin, I said, used it as a common prayer. Nothing wrong with common prayer. If I'm leading in prayer, you have a responsibility to take my words and make them your words. By the way, when you men lead in prayer, you elders, you need to understand that you don't pray in the first person when you lead the congregation in prayer. You should always pray in the first, at least pray in the first person plural, we, not I, because we have to be able to say the words with you. Save your private prayers for the closet and publicly pray for the congregation and lead the congregation in prayers they can say. But if we have to take the words of the one who's praying, then we all can take words of Calvin or somebody else that are printed in the bulletin, and we're not reading those words, so we're praying them, and that's the thing we have to avoid. So prayer of confession, a prayer of thanksgiving. Petition and supplication, Psalm 143, then these commandments, Ephesians 6, 1 Timothy 2, Colossians 4, So we know those various parts of prayer. Okay, next, singing. Again, clear precepts and commandments, got the pattern of the Psalms. Now the Psalter is not a hymn book. The Psalter is more like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. It has hymns, because they've got musical notations, but it has prayers as well. That's into the prayers of David. And that's why I differ with those who say we must only sing songs because we have a hymn book. No, we have a prayer book that has hymns in it. We may sing all those prayers, but they were more than just hymns when they were given to us. But we know we're to sing Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, the commandment to make melody in our hearts. with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. James 5, if anyone is happy, let him sing psalms, which Thomas Manton, who actually preferred psalm singing, said you cannot prove psalm singing from the word psalm. It simply means to praise God. Interestingly, with musical accompaniment. And so the psalm singers that use psalms in their musical accompaniment really aren't singing a psalm as it is revealed. First Corinthians 14, 15, and 26, in that worship in Corinth, we find, if anyone has a psalm, let him bring it. So we have clear biblical commandments for singing. And we should sing hymns and psalms, but I do like what I call inclusive psalmody, predominant psalmody, that is, if I'm planning worship, out of two worship services in the Lord's day, I'm going to sing at least 50% psalms, if not more. because they are God's inspired songs, but then there's many good Reformation hymns as well. By the way, did anybody see the video that got posted last week of the pastor in Bremen, Germany? I posted it so that we get out. Look this guy up. It's interesting for two reasons. He's being interviewed by actually CBN, the charismatic news network, but he is preaching the gospel at the church in Bremen, an old historic church called St. Martin's. And he is preaching against political correctness. He has said that some 80% of German pastors in the state church are unconverted. And he's preaching against all of the fads, homosexual, everything else, preaching the gospel. And the interview, I mean, it's really fantastic. But what's interesting to come out in the interview, and do you know the I love the hymn. I don't have time. I'll tell it to you tonight. But there's a great hymn in the Trinity Hymnal translated by Catherine Winkworth. Any German hymn that she translated is worth singing. And a man named Jehoiachin Neander composed that hymn when he was the pastor of St. Martin's, same building. And there's a window there commemorating Jehoiachin Neander. Now, this is just an amusing part of the story. I was being a really good boy. I took my wife to go to an antique store a week ago before the Alabama football game came on. It was late. So anyway, we were just going through these stalls. And I do like going antiquing with her. And I would not have known what this building looked like if I had not just looked at that video this week. But on the video is a picture of the church. And so we're walking through this booth. And there on the wall is that church. a beautiful hand-pulled lithograph. And on the bottom, it says Bremen. And so there's St. Martin's Church, which I quickly purchased. It's now on the mantle in our house as a reminder to pray for the pastor and to thank God for. And Neander was not Lutheran. He was a reformed German Protestant, which makes it even better. But with your German background, all of you all go look up that video today. And it's quite fantastic, the interview. And he actually was investigated for hate speech. And the Bremen Parliament passed a resolution against him. First time that's happened since World War II. 70 state church pastors have demonstrated against him. So you know he's being heard in this very bold preaching. But he needs our prayers greatly. So then we come to the sacraments. That was just a little diversion to make life interesting. Yes. We'll sing that tonight. All right. Acts 2.42 talks about the Lord's Supper, the breaking of bread. Paul spells that out in 1 Corinthians 11.23 and following. But how about baptism? How do we know that baptism should be a part of corporate worship? Well, that is by inference. It's really not even a clear example. But baptism is being incorporated into the church, visibly. It is part of the keys, and one cannot come to the Lord's Supper without it. So these are inferential arguments of why baptism should be a part of corporate worship and not a private act, which it never has been since the Reformation. And then, interesting, we don't have time to go into this, but Psalm 50 actually talks about the role of covenanting when people come into church membership, taking vows. And that's, again, the reason why we don't administer the Lord's Supper to covenant children who are baptized, because they've not made the covenant their own. They're in the covenant, but they must own the covenant by coming to God, taking covenant vows upon themselves. All right, next, then we've got the offering, which I think from these texts we have clear examples that it's part of corporate worship, 1 Corinthians 16, Psalm 96 and 72, Hebrews 13, 16, right after the praise is the offering. Psalm 5014 to pay vows. I'm greatly confused. I want to learn a lot more of the role of paying vows in the Old Testament church, but it seems to me that there was monetary offerings that were part of paying vows, and then Psalm 4512. Now what some churches do is have the box and then pray over it in the service, or they might even bring the offering forward and pray over it. But I think that the act of putting money in the offering plate is an act of worship. Which, by the way, then, I don't think a church needs to have two offerings at two services. But I think if a church does have two offerings, that we're to put something in both of them. And another principle is the covenantal principle. I mean, I think it's good for the children to be given some money to put in. But basically, the head of household is making the offering for the family. And so when I'm at home, I do that. This morning I called my wife to remind her to write the check and take the offering with her then to church this morning and tonight. And then we've got these special elements. Well, we skip benediction and doxology. Vows, thanksgivings, things that we find in the service, so we take our baptismal vows, our confession vows, we take membership vows, all part of a corporate worship. A day of prayer and fasting to have a worship service that was devoted either to fasting or to thanksgiving, that's appropriate as well. It is five minutes past the bewitching hour. I wouldn't want anybody's roast to burn up in the oven. So, shall I close in prayer? Our Father, we thank you again for giving us such a clear word in your scriptures. so that we can have confidence of why we do what we do. Give us a boldness with that. Help us to communicate that regularly to our children and grandchildren, to the new people you bring into the church, so that we're of one mind and we understand that we're seeking to honor you according to your word. Bless us this afternoon. Give us real joy now in our Sabbath fellowship and rest. Bring us back tonight with renewed hearts to worship and serve you. We ask this for Christ's sake, amen.