All right, so article 32, the order and discipline of the church. So I'll read the article and then we'll discuss it. In the meantime, we believe. Though it is useful and beneficial that those who are rulers of the church institute and establish certain ordinances among themselves for maintaining the body of the church, yet that they ought studiously to take care that they do not depart from those things which Christ, our only master, has instituted. And therefore, we reject all human inventions and all laws which man would introduce into the worship of God, thereby to bind and compel the conscience in any manner, whatever. Therefore, we admit only of that which tends to nourish and preserve concord and unity, and to keep all men in obedience to God. For this purpose, excommunication or church discipline is requisite with all that pertains to it according to the word of God." Okay, so there you have it, Article 32. So we're still in that section of the Belgic, which is dealing with the doctrine of the church. Last week we looked at how ministers, elders, and deacons are called to serve this church as the people through whom the Lord has called to govern and to maintain order in the church. We do hold a three-office view here in the RCUS. A lot of reform denominations hold a three-office view. Some hold a two-office view. They're wrong, but that's okay. They're mistaken. How's that? I'll be a little more gracious there. They're mistaken. Some hold a no-office view. They're wrong. And then some hold a view of church government which is more monarchial or hierarchical, like the Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church. I would argue that they're mistaken as well. The church is not meant to be ruled like a kingdom in that sense. There's only one head of the church, and that's Jesus Christ. He's the king, right? He's reigning and ruling. We are ministers. We are servants. That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, when he's talking about the divisions in the church. He's like, who's Paul? Who's Apollos? We're ministers. We're servants. We're fellow servants in that sense, but we're called to this task to lead and guide the church. So now we're going to look at the order and discipline of the church. So again, just moving on through this idea of the doctrine of the church and What we see here being considered in this article are two things is being looked at here. Worship and discipline. And the first part, really the most of Article 32, is meant to discuss this idea of worship. And it says here that It is useful and beneficial that those who are rulers, so the ministers, elders, and deacons of the church, establish and institute certain ordinances among themselves for maintaining the body of the church. So what we're about to get into here is yet another theological distinction, right? As R.C. Sproul liked to say, theologians like to make distinctions. And here, we're talking about, as I said, we're talking about worship, and we're talking about those things that are included in worship. And when we talk about those things that are included in worship, they break down into two main categories. You've got elements of worship and you've got circumstances of worship. Elements of worship are those things that have to be included in a worship service in order for it to be a worship service. We'll talk about some of those things in a moment. Circumstances are just Well, it's kind of suggested in the word circumstance. They are things that aid and benefit the worship of the church, but they're not necessary. And we'll look at some of those things as well. but we have circumstances and elements of worship. And that's what I think the Belgic is getting across here when it says that the rulers of the church says here it is useful, okay, not required, make sure you note that, not required, but it is useful. It is useful and beneficial to institute and establish certain ordinances among themselves for maintaining the body of the church. But then it says, you've got that caveat there, yet they ought studiously to take care that they do not depart from those things which Christ, our only master, has instituted. Those things, that last sentence there that I read, those things which Christ has instituted, those would be elements of worship. Now we can add to that circumstances to aid and maintain order in the church, but we've got to make sure that in doing so we don't neglect the things that Christ has instituted and said we have to do. And of course, the other thing that we have to watch out for is that we don't take these ordinances and circumstances that we add and elevate them to the level of an element of worship. You see that happen in a lot of other places there. The Belgic here doesn't really go into detail about these certain ordinances, but in our context, and by our context, I mean like in the reformed world, particularly the reformed church in the United States, these things that are certain ordinances in our context would be things such as our constitution. The Constitution of the Reformed Church is a set of rules that we bind ourselves to as officers, as ministers and elders in the church, to make sure that the church functions the way it ought to function. So we have rules regarding membership, rules regarding office holders, rules regarding congregations and meetings, and meetings at the classical level, meetings at the synodical level, and rules regarding discipline and restoration and all those other things that, you know, if you were to read the constitution of the RCOS, that's something I would suggest. If you have insomnia, if you cannot get to sleep at night, read the constitution of the RCOS. It is stimulating. No, it is not stimulating reading. It will put you to sleep, but it's important that we have these things. Okay. It is important that we have a constitution and rules and ordinances, but we recognize that they are not elevated to the status of scripture. They're not even elevated to the status of the confessions. So we call them tertiary or third level standards. But also our directory of worship, which gives us the forms and the words to say, if you will, for worship, for things such as how to conduct a baptism, how to conduct Lord's Supper, how to conduct bringing members into the church, confirmation, things such as that. So these are things, these are, ordinances, as the Belgian Confession here, that are useful and beneficial for maintaining the body of the church. So now other denominations will have other rules and regulations. So if you go to the OPC, they have their own book of church order, which is the equivalent of our Constitution. And they also have a directory of public worship. Same thing with the Presbyterian Church in America, same thing with the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, same thing with the United Reformed Churches, and so on and so forth. These are all ordinances that it says here, useful and beneficial for maintaining order in the church. Now I say all that, and I said that we talk about circumstances and elements in worship, and I'm going to get to that now. So what is this distinction then between circumstances and elements of worship? Well, for that I'm going to go to and I'm going to use Joel Beakey and Paul Smalley's massive four-volume work on reformed systematic theology. It's relatively new, came out with like the last 10 years, at least the first volume did, and then the last volume I think was released a couple years ago. Big, massive, you know, I mean not each volume is like that, but I mean you take the four of them together, they take up that much space on your shelf. And he talks, he has a good section in here, it's in volume 4, pages 418, 419, in case you want to check my references here. He defines a circumstance as such. A circumstance of worship is an ordinary activity that assists God's people in worshiping him in an organized way without physical distractions. It is not a sacred symbol or religiously potent act. Okay. So what would be an example of a circumstance? What do you guys think would be an example of a circumstance of worship, something that assists God's people in worshiping him? Now that would be an element. Singing is an element of worship. How about lights? Lights. Are lights prescribed anywhere in scripture that we have to worship in a lit building? No. Does that assist in worship? Absolutely. We should walk in the light, yes. That's contrary to the advice that Indiana Jones was giving to his guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Don't step into the light. You guys have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, right? Just saying. My movie references are hit or miss with this crowd. But I figure if it's at least 40, 45 years old, there's a chance you all may have seen it. So light, a building. We're not required to worship in a building. The church is not a building, it's a people, right? Air conditioning. Microphones, right? All of these things assist in the worship of God. If I didn't have a microphone and somebody was sitting way in the back and I didn't yell loud enough, they wouldn't hear, right? And how would their worship experience be? Not as good as somebody who never sits up at the first four rows. Well, you guys are in the fourth row, so. These are all things that assist in the worship of God. Air conditioning. I'm thankful for air conditioning, particularly today. In fact, you can make an argument that some would say you shouldn't have musical instruments in worship. Now, given the way we sing, we might want to have musical instruments in worship. Some of us sing. Some of us sing very, very nicely. Others make a joyful noise. Those are all circumstances of worship. So time of worship. There's nothing that says we have to worship at 1030. It could be 10 o'clock. It could be 11 o'clock. We have to worship on the Lord's day. We do recognize that, the fourth commandment, honor the Sabbath day, keep it holy. So we do recognize the Lord's day, but there's nothing that says we have to meet at 1030. It's a convenience, place of worship, furnishings. You know, these pews, we could have chairs. We could stand. I wouldn't recommend that because, you know, you might, the length of time I preach, some of you might like keel over at some point. Use of technology, we already mentioned that, the headset here, the microphone. Language. How about language? Did the ancient church worship in English? No, they worship probably in Greek or Aramaic depending on where they were at. Musical style, you can make an argument for musical style. Now this one I would say is a little something that would be up for debate in Presbyterian Reformed circles as far as style of music. Do you worship hymns only or psalms only? Do you worship with psalms and hymns? Do you use contemporary music? Do you use a band? Do you just use a piano or an organ? Do you use no instrumentation at all? You're going to get arguments there. But the style of music, if you're a Reformed church and you decide, well, we want to have contemporary worship, that would be a circumstance, the style of music, things such as that. Beaky and Smalley define an element as such. An element of worship is something that God sets apart as holy and blesses as a means of his gracious manifestation of his presence and glory. If you're writing that down, you want me to repeat that? An element of worship is something that God sets apart as holy and blesses as a means of his gracious manifestation of his presence and glory. And then there's an additional comment, but that's not really part of the definition. When a church performs an element of worship, it offers it to God for his honor in the desire that God's children will commune with him in his special presence. Okay. So, Notice what it says there, or at least what Beaky and Smalley, how they describe an element. It is something that God ordains. God sets apart as holy. God says, worship me in this manner. Okay. So for example, to take an Old Testament example, did God establish certain ways in which he ought to be worshiped in the Old Testament? Yeah, you bet he did. And what happened when Aaron's two sons decided to worship him in a way that God did not prescribe? It didn't go well for them, right? They were kind of zapped on the spot because of offering up a strange fire. So you've got these elements of worship. Now, we would argue that the elements of worship include the reading and preaching of Holy Scripture. That has to be in a worship service. You have to read God's word and you have to have God's word proclaimed and explained. Corporate prayer would be an element of worship. Corporate singing, so singing, but style of music, that can be debatable. Offerings, and of course, the use of the sacraments, baptism in the Lord's Supper. I had you turn to Colossians, but keep your place there. I'm gonna have you turn to Acts first. I forgot about some references passage, but you're like, it would be nice if we had a scripture reference that said that these are the elements of worship. And I have one for you. In Acts 2.42, this is at the end of that Pentecost day, after the 3,000 were converted through the preaching of Peter. It says in verse 41, the 3,000 souls were added to them that day. And then in verse 42, it says, they, the disciples, along with the apostles, continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. So there you kind of have a little bit of some of these elements of worship, right? They continued in the apostles' doctrine. What's that? Well, you know, to listen to Jude, as we'll see later on, that's the content of our faith, right? The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. That is the apostles' doctrine. Remember that the church, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, is built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. So Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ministry, that is our salvation. And then the apostles' doctrine explains that to us and tells us how we appropriate those benefits. So apostles' doctrine. Where is the apostles' doctrine contained today? Scripture. So the reading and preaching of Scripture. Fellowship, so the breaking of bread. You could say the breaking of bread could be fellowship meals. You can also say the breaking of bread could be the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Fellowship, the one anotherings that we see in Scripture, and of course, prayer. Now you're like, where does singing come in? Well, you can look at Ephesians 5 or Colossians 3 where Paul says, be filled with the Spirit in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody in your hearts to the Lord, so on and so forth. These are elements of worship. These are things that need to be included in worship. Now, we also prescribe an order for that, for those elements, right? Right. So if you were to look in our directory of public worship, we have like a prescribed, what we would call liturgy or order. That's all it means, order of worship. That's why we have a bulletin that has the order of worship, right? And we have these things in which these things are arranged. in a dialogical fashion. So we hear God speak to us through the minister and through his word, and we respond to God through prayer, through singing, through giving our attention to the word as it is read and preached. So we have an order. Right? And worship needs to be done orderly, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14. Their problem was they were kind of doing things all over the place. And he's like, look, you guys are, your worship is a chaotic mess. It's like, you need to have order. If someone has a word of prophecy only one at a time, if someone is speaking in a tongue, he can't do so unless there's someone to interpret. Otherwise it's just a bunch of gibberish. And people are going to come in and say, y'all are crazy. That's kind of, I mean, that's my paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 14 at the end. But that's, that's kind of what he says. If people come in and they see your worship here in Corinth, they're going to say, y'all are crazy. And then walk away. So we have a liturgy, right? So, you know, God greets us with his word of greeting, right? You wouldn't have the greeting at the end. You wouldn't have the benediction at the beginning, right? And then we try to order it so it kind of flows in a back and forth manner in worship. All of these things. as we see here, are ordinances that the church rulers can institute and establish for maintaining the body of Christ, or as Beaky says, to assist God's people in worshiping him. All of these things that we do are meant to assist us in worship, okay? To make sure that the elements are being used properly in worship. And they must never cause us to neglect or depart from what the Lord has established. That's why I had you turn to Colossians 2. So if you look at Colossians 2 verses 6 and 7, here Paul says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him. rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught. abounding in it with thanksgiving. You can also look at the Great Commission, right, where Jesus tells his disciples, go into all nations, make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. So these are ordinances that Christ has established. The worship, the sacraments, these are things that Christ has established for, to be used in worship. And then we, the church leadership, can establish practices that assist and aid in that worship. And, you know, if you were to read on in Colossians 2 here, you would see how others try to add things to worship. So like, you know, look at verse 8, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy or empty deceit. Or you look a little bit later. Verse 16, see that no one judge you in food or drink regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, plural Sabbaths. So they were trying to introduce things into worship. Think about what Jesus says to the Pharisees himself in Matthew 15. Ladies, you were with us in Matthew 15, right? What does he say there? He says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. And he's talking about how the Pharisees have elevated their tradition above the law of God. because they had a practice that said, if anything that they were going to give, let's say if they had a gift that they were to use to support their parents, and they said, well, sorry, this gift has been earmarked for worship. I have to give this to God. And then now your parents are, you know, kind of left struggling on their own. Jesus says, you're breaking the commandment of God, honoring your father and mother for your silly traditions. Don't do that. That's legalism. That's the heart of legalism, where you substitute traditions for the Word of God, where you're making null and void the Word of God. All right, so that brings us down to the second part here. So the first part, you have their circumstances and elements of public worship. And now, how many people here have heard of the regulative principle of worship? Have you heard that phrase before, regulative principle of worship? If you're informed, this should be something that you've heard before. Okay, that's fine. If you can't define it, don't worry about it. Article 32 moves on, and it has a very strong statement here regarding what it says is human inventions. Okay. Now we're not like talking like the telephone or the internet, not those kinds of human inventions. Things that we introduce into worship. So it goes on, it says, and therefore we reject all human inventions in all laws, which man would introduce into the worship of God, thereby to bind and compel the conscience in any manner, whatever. So this is what I was talking about earlier when I said this difference between circumstances and elements of worship. If we take a circumstance and we elevate it to the level of an element of worship, we are in a sense then binding the conscience of people. What would be an example? An example would be that See, this is where I wish I had thought of some examples beforehand. Okay, well, I'm gonna pick on the Roman Catholics, sorry. Mark. Yeah, I was gonna go in that direction and kind of say that. So like saying that we, here's one, Lent, okay. If you wish to celebrate and have a period before Resurrection Sunday where you want to be penitent of your sins and kind of take a period to reflect and deny yourself some physical pleasures or whatever leading up to Easter, that's on you. But if the church says, okay, we are now entering the season of Lent and now you must do certain things, Okay, show me in the Bible where it says we have to do that, because that's our ultimate standard. So we're taking your tradition, which is a fine tradition. You know, I have nothing personal against it. You know, it's kind of been warped and made almost ridiculous. It's like it used to be you had to fast, and it's like, well, we don't like fasting, so let's just say you can't eat meat on Fridays. It's like, but you can eat all the fish you want. It's like, well, you're not really fasting now, are you? And then people are like, I'm going to give up bubblegum for Lent or something silly. It's like, I never chewed bubble gum, but I'm going to give it up for Lent. That's what I'm saying. It's kind of silly when you do things like that. We've taken a practice that, particularly the whole idea of the church calendar, where the church has to recognize certain things in a certain way, and then it makes it binding on the people in the church. That's kind of what we want to avoid. And I think that's what the Belgic Confession here is talking about when it says all these inhuman inventions. that we introduce into the worship of God. If you want to take time and be penitent, if you want to take time and deny yourself, if you want to fast and pray, that's on you. Do it. These are wonderful practices that God's Word commends to us, but they are not elements of worship. And the church and the church leadership can't say, I can't come up here and say to you that the consistory of Emanuel Reformed Church has declared that you must fast every third Friday of the month. You're like, well, why? Show me where. I can't show you where because I'm making that up. These will be things that the Belgic here is saying human inventions. How about having worship service on Saturday night instead of Sunday? Right. That would be another one too. That, yeah, see now they would say that's, that's, that's freeing, right? You know, we're giving you options, but you know, actually we are called to worship on the Lord's day. So to say Saturday worship can substitute for Sunday worship, that would be a violation of a commandment of God. I would, I would argue in that sense, but that would be an example too. Um, So things like that. So, as I said here, given the context of the Belgian Confession in which it was written, I think this is a clear rebuke of the Roman Catholic system. They introduced all kinds of practices and rituals that were binding on the church. So that's why I titled this section, The Regulative Principle of Worship. Because there's two ways that we consider how worship is to be conducted. There's the regulative principle, or RPW, and then there's the other one that's called the normative principle of worship, or the NPW. You're like, what's the difference? I'll tell you. The regulative principle of worship says in worship, We are only to do what God has explicitly commanded or by good and necessary consequences can be derived from God's word. Okay. We are only to do that in worship, which God has explicitly commanded or what we can derive from good and necessary consequences out of God's word. So things that we, that we can sort of make an argument from God's word that says we should do this. Okay. So RPW, we only do what God has explicitly commanded. So the normative principle would be the flip side of that, which says whatever God has not explicitly forbidden is permissible. Okay? Whatever God has not explicitly forbidden is permissible. So you could say, God has never said we can't have guitars and drums and sing modern worship songs and praise and worship songs. So it's permissible in worship. Whereas the RPW would say, Now, if you're a hardcore RPW guy, like the Reformed Presbyterians are, they think we should only sing psalms. Exclusive psalmody. Now there's, again, there's going to be a debate in Reformed circles as to how well some of us hold to the regulative principle versus others. But they would say we should only sing God's word back to them. Okay. I think that's a pretty compelling argument, but I can't say that that's the only way we should sing back to God. Right. You know, I look at passages that say, sing a new song or Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. They would say, well, those are all just synonyms for Psalms. So in other words, when Paul says, you know, be filled with the spirit in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, it's the same thing as saying, be filled with the spirit and sing to the Lord in Psalms, Psalms, and Psalms. You know, it's like, yes, they're synonymous, but. You know, I don't think they all mean Psalms, even though those terms are used in Psalter to describe certain types of Psalms. Anyway, I think I'm getting off the track here. In general, I would say reformed and Presbyterian churches adhere or follow the reform or the regular principle of worship. And we see this in Heidelberg, Lord's Day 35, question 96, which is the the second commandment. So as the Heidelberg goes through the 10 commandments, it gets to question 96. And it says, what does God require in the second commandment? Now the second commandment, that's the commandment where it says, you shall not make for yourself the carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or earth below and so on. So no carved images. And from that, we would argue that, you know, we should not have images of Christ, you know, images of God in the church. That's another thing that you see a lot in Lutheran churches and Catholic churches, the stained glass windows with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit all over the place, just plastered all over the place. In the reformed world, we would say that's a second commandment violation. We're never told what Jesus looked like other than that he was a Jewish man. So to make an image of Christ is in a sense to make an image of the incarnate God, which we would argue is forbidden. But look here where it says, what does God require in the second commandment? The answer is that we in no way make any image of God. nor worship him in any other way than he has commanded us in his word." There's the regulative principle of worship in practice. We do not worship God in any other way than that which he has commanded us in his word. How has he commanded us in his word? Well, the elements of worship, right? The breaking of bread, the apostle's doctrine, prayers, and so on and so forth. That's the regulative principle of worship. The Westminster also has a very strong statement on that in chapter 21, section 1, which is on religious worship and the Sabbath day. So here it says, the light of nature shows that there is a God. who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is good and does good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might. But, this is the important part, okay? All that was just lead up to this sentence here. But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself. and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture." Again, regular principle worship says we are only to worship and do that in worship, which God has explicitly commanded or can be concluded through good and necessary consequences, as the Westminster says. So a classic example of not worshiping God in the way that he has been prescribed. We already looked at Nadab and Abihu. How about Cain and Abel? How were they told to worship God? You don't see that. Well, you kind of see it in the way that Abel's offering is given by faith. Consider what they would have been able to surmise so far from what has happened in the first couple of chapters in Genesis. Cain and Abel would know that their parents were expelled from the garden. They would know that animals were slaughtered to cover their nakedness. We would know that they were no longer able to approach the garden temple of God. and that blood was required, right? Blood was required because animals were killed to cover their sin. They were supposed to die in the day that they ate of the fruit, yet these animals died in their place. So already you have this idea of, okay, blood, sacrifice, you know, in order to approach God. So when they bring their offerings, presumably to the edge of the garden, what is Abel's offering? Well, he offers of the finest of the flock, right? He's a shepherd, Abel's a shepherd. So he offers the finest of the flock. Cain is a farmer. What does he offer? Grain, right? He brings grain. And then we see that God accepted Abel's offering and rejected Cain's offering. Now, again, you know, there's no explicit command, but I think you can derive from good and necessary consequences what was required to bring an offering to the Lord in that sense. And Cain's, it's a perfectly fine offering when you consider the laws later on about, you know, thanks offerings and peace offerings where there's food involved. But all that comes after sin offerings and burnt offerings and these things that sort of atone for your sin. You can't have peace with God until sin has been atoned for, right? There's no way to have peace with God until sin has been atoned for. So in general, as I said, the Reformed and Presbyterian follow the regulated principle of worship. And then pretty much, you know, Lutherans, Anglicans, Baptists, Evangelicals, they would hold to a more normative principle of worship. So if it hasn't been explicitly forbidden, then it's permissible in church. Now, is one way better than the other? I mean, is God not going to accept normative principle of worship? I don't think it goes that far. I think the whole idea of all of this is we're just trying to be as biblical as possible, okay? And from our understanding and from the understanding of our Reformed forefathers, this is the way we feel is more faithful to Scripture. Others will hold a different view on that, depending on their traditions and such. So, I'll just say that there. Now, again, I think the argument can be persuasively made from the scriptures that the regular principle of worship is biblical as opposed to the normative principle. So I'm going to turn to a few passages here. You can turn with me. First is Isaiah 29. Isaiah 29 verse 13. Now Jesus is going to quote this verse as well. So Isaiah 29 verse 13, therefore the Lord said, inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from me and their fear toward me is taught by the commandment of men. So they have instituted and substituted the commandments of men for proper worship. And the Lord here is saying, look, they draw near. They come to me, but they do not honor me with their lips. They do not honor me with their mouths. They do not honor me with their heart. Their hearts are far from me. And they are elevating commandments of men over the law of God. Jesus is going to draw upon this. And I kind of mentioned this earlier in Matthew 15, where he's rebuking the Pharisees' worship. He says, you have elevated and made null the word of God for your traditions. You're back in Colossians. I kind of alluded to this too. Colossians 2 verse 18 and following, let no one cheat you out of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, introducing into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind and not holding fast to the head that is Christ from whom all the body nourish and knit together by joints and ligaments grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish with the using, according to the commandments and doctrines of men. These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-opposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh." So you're talking here, Paul's talking about, in Colossians, it's interesting, you know, we're not sure exactly, is he referring to pagan worshipers, Jewish worshipers? I think there's both involved here. But he's talking about people here who have been introduced Traditions of men, right? Self-imposed religion. Neglect of the body. Again, think of like Martin Luther and how he would deny himself and he would go to confession and all these things because he thought that somehow he would be able to combat his sin through these means that have the appearance of wisdom, as it says here, but have no value against the flesh. And of course Galatians 5.1, for freedom Christ has set you free, therefore do not put yourselves under a yoke of slavery. There he's talking about legalism. So in the end, the normative principle might seem okay, right? Well, if God hasn't said, don't do it, we should be allowed to do it. But I think in the end, when you do those things, I think the normative principle tends to bind consciences. That's the problem. Because you start introducing these things into worship, and eventually they become elevated to the point of an element of worship, and then it becomes binding upon the conscience. Whereas the regular principle may seem like, wow, you guys are strict. But it's like, well, all we're saying is we only want to do what God has commanded us to do, because that's what's binding, right? When God says do it, we do it, right? When God says jump, what's our answer? How high, right? You guys are on the ball there. When God says do it, we do it. If God says don't do it, we don't do it. If God is silent in regards to worship, we probably shouldn't do it. Because if we do it in worship and God hasn't commanded it, then it takes on the veneer of an element of worship and it becomes binding to our conscience. So that's the point I'm trying to get across here. All right, third and finally. Didn't think it was going to take this long, but it's taking this long. The last thing he talks about here in the Belgic Confession is the necessity of church discipline. Now, again, as I said, it might seem that the regular principle of worship is legalistic and strict and binding, but as I said, it's really, it's protection for you all, because I am committed to it. I can't bind your conscience and say, you have to do this in worship. If we have a special offering like we're going to have this morning for Compassion Kenya, I can't tell you, you must give to that offering or you're going to be under church discipline. It's not binding. Giving to the church is expected, but giving to special causes. Or I said, you must go out every Saturday into the city park and evangelize. It'd be nice if you did that. You know, but I can't bind your conscience in that matter as a matter of worship. So this actually promotes Christian liberty and the edification of the church. So then Article 32 concludes by saying, therefore, we admit only of that which tends to nourish and preserve concord and unity and to keep all men in obedience. For this purpose, excommunication or church discipline is requisite with all that pertains to it according to the word of God. So now we've talked about worship, now we're talking about discipline. So as I said, this article looks at those two topics, worship and discipline. Now we're looking at the idea of discipline. So we only allow and to worship those things which nourish, which preserve the people of God, which keeps the unity. And the idea is to keep all men or people obedient to God. And as we say in our fourth membership vow, if you are found to be delinquent in faith or practice, you will submit yourselves to the authority and government and discipline of the church. So we talk about discipline, including excommunication with all that pertains according to the word of God. So the point of these ordinances that we establish in the church, that are brought into the church, they all serve the goal of promoting and protecting public worship. That is our goal, that is our desire, that's what we ought to try to Preserve and protect within the church. We don't want to elevate Circumstances to the level of elements and thus provide, you know bind your conscience. We don't want to add Elements to our worship think of you know, we're going to talk about the sacraments Lord willing next week but think about again how, I don't want to bash on the Roman Catholic Church, but this is a Reformation, you know, this is a Reformation confession. It was written in the 1500s, and the context of the Roman Catholic Church is prevalent there. And think about, you know, when Christ institutes sacraments, he only gives us two sacraments, right? He gives us baptism, which is instituted in the Great Commission, and he gives us the Lord's Supper, which is instituted the night on which he was betrayed. And these are the two things we say are sacraments and means of grace, but Roman Catholic Church has added five others, right? You know, holy unction. So last rites, marriage, holy orders, confession, and what's the fifth one? I think confirmation, I think confirmation, that might be the fifth one. They've elevated these to sacraments as means of grace. We don't want to add to that. We only want to do what God has told us to do. So we want the people then, as we see here, as the Belgic says, to be in obedience to God, not to men. Thus, discipline is requisite. Remember, what were the three marks of the true church? Preaching of the gospel, ministration of the sacraments, and exercise of discipline, right? So discipline is required. It's requisite in the church. It is a mark of the true church. If you don't have discipline in the church, you're probably not a true church. And this discipline is according to the word of God. Again, regulative principle of worship and discipline. Not according to my will, right? I can't discipline people because I feel like it. It has to be according to the word of God, right? And we have, you know, of course, Matthew 18 has, it's the classic passage that talks about sin in the church. What if my brother sins? What do I do? Well, you bring your sin, you bring that sin to him. And if he repents, you have your brother back. What if he doesn't listen? Well, you bring a couple of witnesses. What if he still doesn't listen? Okay, now you tell it to the church. What if he still doesn't listen? Now you treat him as a tax collector and as a Gentile. In other words, excommunicate him. The point of discipline, though, is not to kick sinners out of the church. If we were to kick sinners out of the church, how many people would be left in the church? Zero, right? Okay. We do discipline to correct people and get them back into obedience to God, right? And discipline is always for the sake of restoration. It should always be with the intent to bring the sinning brother or sister back into the fold. That's why, as Heidelberg 31 says about The keys of the kingdom particularly question 85 How is the kingdom of heaven shut and open by Christian discipline Right. So we talked about the gospel the gospel and discipline are the keys of the kingdom So how is and keys open and shut things? So how is it open and shut by the by discipline? And it answers in this way that according to the command of Christ if any under the Christian name show themselves unsound either in doctrine or in life. And after several brotherly admonitions, according to Matthew 18, do not turn from their errors or evil ways, they are complained of to the church. So it's brought now to the church leadership, in our case, the spiritual council or its proper officers. And if they neglect to hear them also, are by them denied the holy sacraments. So you can be excluded from the table. You can be excluded from Christian communion by excommunication and by God himself from the kingdom of Christ. And if they promise and show real amendment, they are again received as members of Christ and his church. So discipline, of course, is for that purpose of bringing people back, of restoring them into fellowship in the church. I'll stop here because I've got five minutes left and I have nothing more in my notes. I could say more, but I won't because we're at time. Next week, Lord willing, we'll look at Article 33 and the sacrament.