Well, we are continuing to work our way through our short series on the history of Holy Days, as we consider them in the Word of God. It seems to be seasonable to take this up at this time, for we have all of the Romish Christ Mass around us all of the time. And if we are to be faithful Christians, we have to learn to ask ourselves the question, About everything, what does the Word of God have to say about it? It's interesting that we've been working our way through the book of Job at this same time, because Job frequently complains that the lessons that his friends thought that they had learned from the ancients, those things that had come down to them by tradition, he complains that they are not always reliable, and not always in keeping with the mind of God. And so it becomes our duty, we have to examine everything by the light of the Word of God. If I manage to instill anything in you, in your time with me, I hope it's this, that you learn to ask the question, what does the Bible have to say about it? Whatever it might be. And asking the question in the full assurance of faith, that the Bible is going to provide you the answer and direction. that the word of God is sufficient to make you perfect for every good work so that you would lack nothing so we take this up and ask the question is God pleased with these holy days as they are celebrated in our land at this time let's do a bit of review so we can all come together to our current point we began our study by looking again at the regulative principle of worship There are several different ways of framing this up. The classic definition is, if it hasn't been commanded for worship, then it's considered forbidden. The Westminster Divines say the same thing in slightly different words. They say that the worship of God is limited to His own revealed will, those things that He has given us in the Word of God, and we are not free to invent things or to make things up. Now when we consider the regulative principle of worship and its application we also recognize that we see something of the Christian man's freedom that we have been set free from the doctrines and commandments of men with respect to worship set free to worship God as He has commanded, without feeling obligated to obey men when their commandments are contrary to the Word of God and worship, or even beside of it. No additions. We are free with respect to these things. Now my general case throughout all of these sermons is this, that God has reserved for Himself the hallowing of days, the setting apart of days. And that in the Word of God, He never shows any pleasure in the pretended hallowing of days by men, or the setting apart of them for sacred uses. You will remember our discussion on the regulative principle, we made a distinction between forms and circumstances, and this is very important to observe here. God commands the forms of worship, we'll be talking about this some more as we go. The reading, preaching and conscionable hearing of his word. He commands prayer, the singing of his psalms, and the administration of the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. Those are the forms or the substance of worship all commanded by God. Generally speaking, during this current administration, God has left the circumstances of that worship flexible. Now as the Westminster Assembly defines it, the circumstances of worship are those things that are really necessary for the meeting of any human society. So if God commands us to worship, but he doesn't give us a particular time, well, the public authority is going to need to set a time and a place so that we can come together to do the duties that have been set before us. So those are the kinds of things that we're thinking about in circumstances. But as George Gillespie, that great Scottish divine, pointed out, in order for us to change the circumstances, they must be unregulated circumstances. Because God has regulated some of those. Under the old administration, He regulated quite a few circumstances. You're not just going to sacrifice anywhere you want. You're going to do it in Jerusalem. You can sing the Psalms anywhere in the land. But the playing of the musical instruments is reserved for the temple. And those things are going to be done here. So here we have a regulated circumstance. You are going to do some things in Jerusalem and in Jerusalem alone. A regulated place. And God also regulated a great many times. We're going to be looking at this. He gave certain ceremonial Sabbaths you are going to meet during this time of year and you're going to do these particular things during that time and you're going to do them in Jerusalem. So my argument here is basically that holy days are a regulated circumstance. that God has reserved for Himself the hallowing of days, the setting of them apart, and He has not left it in the hands of man, and never shows any pleasure when men pretend to hallow days for themselves. We also talked about the sufficiency of Scripture and holy days. Isn't it a wonderful thing that God has told us what days to keep in order to please Him? We haven't been left to grope or wonder. It's that great passage from Micah. You remember it. Micah goes in a slightly different direction, but the Israelites are wondering, God has been offended by us. What should we do in order to please him? And Micah says, leave off wondering, because God has told you what to do in order to please him. Look to his word for that direction. And so we have this assurance of faith that God has told us everything that we are to believe, and to do in his word in order to be pleasing unto him. And this brings us to the meat or the substance of it, and we've got to start into this. From the creation to the time of Moses, a little over 2,500 years, there was only one holy day observed in the church. 42% of the earth's history passed and the only thing that they were observing was the weekly Sabbath day hallowed by God at the foundation of the world and here God taught man the right proportion of time of work over against his worship now of course Adam sitting there in the garden might have asked the question well I know that I have a duty to worship God and I also know I have a duty to perform all the other duties of the dominion mandate. I've got to cultivate this creation. But what's the right proportion? Now Adam looking at his circumstances with human wisdom might say every day is too much to set apart for the worship of God. I wouldn't be able to perform my dominion duties. But once a month seems too infrequent for the worship of God. What is that perfect and right proportion? God doesn't leave Adam to grope after it. but he declares it to Adam from infinite wisdom you'll work six days and you will worship on the seventh day this is the pattern that I've set up for you and it is indeed moral and not ceremonial moral and not optional he set it up from the foundation of the world as such based on moral requirements I must work and I must worship And a certain amount of time is to be set apart for each. What is that time? What is that time that's going to please God? With the Mosaic administration, things changed. We're approaching the time of the arrival of Jesus Christ. With Moses and the deliverance out of Egypt, there's only 1,500 years remaining. And so we find that Jesus Christ becomes progressively more clearly revealed. And the ceremonial Sabbaths or the ceremonial holy days were given to Moses to make Jesus Christ more clear to the people. Another way of saying this is, why did God give ceremonial Sabbaths to preach Jesus Christ to the people? And we do know from the New Testament that people looked at those things and those ordinances, saw Jesus Christ in them and believed upon him. You remember those great words that Jesus spoke to the Pharisees? He said, if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because Moses spoke of me. What did you think all of that stuff was about anyway? And you remember as he summarized the teaching of all of the scripture including the law in Luke chapter 24 he said all of it was about me. About my crucifixion and death to make an atonement for sins. About my resurrection from the dead and the preaching of this gospel in all of the world. It has all been about me. Well with the addition of ceremonial Sabbaths we have to understand that the only one that could alter God's moral pattern of six days of work and one day of rest is God himself. He is the only one that has the authority to alter that or to make exceptions or to set other things apart. Last week we looked at the first ceremonial Sabbath that was given to the church and that was the Passover together with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In this, God taught them quite a bit about the doctrines of justification and sanctification. He had the sacrifice of the Lamb, the spreading of the blood upon the door so that the wrath of God would pass by. The guilt of your sins has been taken away by the blood of Jesus Christ. And with that in view, they would enter into a time of symbolic sanctification the taking away of leaven which was a symbol of sin that would be taken away out of their households and they would consume none being taught about their sanctification they are sanctified set apart unto God and their sins are being put away from them well we saw that shortly after the institution of the Passover Aaron tried to appoint another holy day the golden calf incident now everybody remembers that Aaron made a golden calf and that he built an altar and they sacrificed to it but few people remember that Aaron tried to sanctify a day and to set it apart for that worship Now you will remember that it's part of the feast that inflames the anger of Moses, as he is rightly representing the disposition of God, because when he comes down from the mount, what does the text say? That he saw the calf and he saw the revelry and the dancing and he was inflamed by it. It wasn't just the gross idolatry of the graven image that inflamed him. It was the fact that they had set apart a feast day and were conducting a feast to this thing. And how different was the disposition of Moses, who was the civil magistrate at that time. Moses didn't say, well, he didn't separate these things apart because they were all the same in principle. They're all the same in principle, because here man was undertaking to make an approach unto God on his own terms. We like the graven image. We like our altar. We like our holy day. We're going to make our approach to God on our terms. Now, Moses didn't make any attempt to separate these things out and say your altar and your calf are no good. But, well, your holy day, that's just fine. And since you like it as a people, we're going to continue with that. What does Moses do? So different from our own magistrate. He melts it, he grinds it into powder and not being satisfied with that he throws it in the lake and then makes him drink it. How far was he from sanctifying that day or setting it apart for a perpetual remembrance? It's as if he would have the whole thing cast into oblivion and forgotten forever. which is what of course he'll say in Deuteronomy you don't preserve the monuments to idolatry, you tear them down so you're going to go into that land and you're going to see altars to Baal you're going to tear them down and you're going to see the groves dedicated to the Ashtaroth you're going to burn them and let their names be blotted out from underneath heaven this has great implications for the Christ mass for centuries and centuries Rome has been worshipping its little bread wafer, its little bread god, and the Christ Mass has become a monument to that, and ought to be taken away, not remembered, not kept. But this doesn't quite do all of what we want to do. You see, Moses' displeasure, and we can say for sure that monuments to idolatry ought to be taken away. But we still haven't come to a full resolution of this question. Would God be pleased if any person tried to add a holy day? We've made an approach to it, we've seen something of God's general disposition, but the case is not yet closed. Well, first this morning, what I want to do is just talk about the system of holy days as it was given to Moses, the ceremonial Sabbaths, because this is really the next big thing that happens in redemption. And this is fitting to do. We're going to be having the Lord's Supper next week. All of these ceremonial Sabbaths were pointing forward to Jesus Christ in his redemptive work. And now we have the Lord's Supper which points back to it, a memorial to that work. So they signify very much the same thing, the same person and the same work. When I started to design this as a sermon, I found that just discussing the Passover would take the whole time and I thought, I'm going to end up spending a lot of weeks doing this if I do everything that I would like to do with it. So I'm just going to try to give you a sketch of the ceremonial Sabbaths of the Jews and what their weeks and months and years looked like. Just sketch it out for you. If you want to look at more, Exodus chapters 23 and 34, Leviticus 23, Numbers 28, and Deuteronomy chapter 16 are good places to go to get full treatments of the ceremonial Sabbaths. But we start with the root of it all. We start with the weekly moral Sabbath. This became, as it were, the model for all of the ceremonial Sabbaths. And what we see time and time again is that there was a conceptual connection between them. Moses begins a lot of his discussion about the ceremonial Sabbaths by mentioning the weekly Sabbath, and then building from there. So, to give you one example, turning your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 23, Now, when you have time, you want to look at Exodus 23 as well, because Moses does it in almost the same exact way. But notice the conceptual connection. Chapter 23 is all about those three great feasts, those three great annual feasts when they would go up to Jerusalem. But he starts his discussion with the weekly Sabbath and then builds. Verse 1, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest and holy convocation. Ye shall do no work therein. It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. these are the feasts of the Lord even holy convocations which ye shall proclaim in their seasons and the 14th day at the first month even is the Lord's Passover and from there he goes on but you notice how he starts with the weekly Sabbath and then begins to build just a brief note just for the sake of completeness sometimes I get the question When was the synagogue instituted? Was this just some bit of Jewish religion that crept in later on? It's instituted right here. He tells them that they're going to have holy convocations week by week, but only requires you go up to Jerusalem three times in the year. But they were going to have local holy convocations in their several places of dwelling, i.e. the synagogue and the genesis of the synagogue. This is one of the reasons why Levites were scattered throughout all of the land. Because you need ministers in all of the several places of dwelling. It's not as if the people are only going to worship the Lord three times a year when they go up to Jerusalem. If you're going to go for sacrifice, you have to go to Jerusalem. But to hear the Word of God read and preached, well you could have that in your synagogue, prayer. Even though it will be some time removed from this, the singing of the songs with the arrival of David. but they had local worship as it were. Now what we will see is that there's another way of looking at the conceptual relationship between the weekly sabbath and the ceremonial sabbaths. One of the things we'll see is that there's a constant patterning of seven and you see that the weekly sabbath was indeed the model. Most of us are well familiar with the weekly Sabbath, but let me introduce you to their ceremonial Sabbaths. They had what was called the New Moon, where at the beginning of each of their months, and they had a lunar calendar. So with the New Moon, each month, the beginning of their month, they would draw aside from their work to hear preaching and to offer sacrifices, to hear preaching concerning Christ and to have that sacrament. of Christ's sacrifice Christ preached to them month by month beyond that you have the three annual feasts those times when all of the males were required to go up to Jerusalem for worship and again if I might observe something isn't it wonderful the greater inclusiveness of this new administration over against the old And under the old administration, only males received the sign of the covenant. Now that doesn't mean women weren't included, but only men received it. Circumcision. And then, when it comes to that great sacrament, so much like the Lord's Supper, the Passover, the women could go up, but only the males were required. But during this present administration, God has given us a sacrament of inclusion or inclusion in the covenant community, baptism which is given to all of its members and the Lord's Supper available to all of its members. A wonderful and much greater inclusiveness. This does have implication for the debate between Paido-Baptists and those that believe in a believers only baptism. Wouldn't it be strange if the All of the sudden the ordinances became more restrictive rather than more inclusive. Imagine being a first century Jew. I know that you've just come to Jesus Christ and you have your children and they were circumcised and they used to be part of the covenant, but now they're out. And you have to wait till later. That's contrary to the entire trajectory of the Bible. Read Isaiah. Read Isaiah straight through to Malachi. What are they talking about? The Gentiles are going to come in. This whole thing is going to be more inclusive than what it has ever been in ages past. Let's just decide. As we go on, we already talked about the Passover. That was the first of their yearly feasts. And that was in the first month. the first month of the year, their month, Nisan which is roughly equivalent to our April to give you some idea of when it was going on it's very interesting that the Passover was on the 14th of Nisan in other words, at the end of two weeks two cycles of seven you go in at the beginning of the third cycle of seven you began the Feast of Unleavened Bread and continued that for how long? a week's time You see the cycles of seven, the patterning of seven. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Christ was preached in this, delivering from the wrath of God, justification, taking away the guilt of their sins. He delivered them out of the kingdom of sin and death. Egypt was a great type of this, Romans chapter six. And he was sanctifying them, feast of unleavened bread, the removal of that type of sin from their lives, as it were. and of course we know that the Lord's Supper is most immediately related to this Old Testament sacrament most of us are pretty familiar with the Passover but the others were a little less familiar with the second great feast was called the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost both of those names mean roughly the same thing basically you had seven weeks of seven days the Feast of Weeks or on the 50th day after the seven cycles of seven we're going to have a Holy Convocation Pentecost the 50th you see that the 50th day after this took place in what would roughly be our June but their third month in their calendar The seven weeks that were intervening between Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost was basically the time between their barley harvest and their wheat harvest. And so the Feast of Pentecost was a feast of first fruits. God has now brought in the harvests and He has blessed us. And so then at that time they would present their first fruits to be waved before the Lord in a thanksgiving to Him. But we know ultimately this was pointing forward to what? The firstfruits of the Holy Spirit in the midst of his people. And God's firstfruits of the church. And that little group of 120, as it were, had the gospel heralded by Peter and many many thousands were brought in a first fruit harvest to the Lord God during that time but these things preached from ancient times and not new not surprisingly the seventh month was very special for them roughly our October they did many things in the seventh month there was you might think of it as a matrix or a complex of holy days because there was a bunch of things going on they had a special new moon celebration at the beginning of the seventh month which was the feast of trumpets they would have the blowing of the trumpets a little bit of background this was the beginning of their civil calendar their new year with respect to civil matters even as Nissan was their first month with respect to church matters so they actually had two different calendars but this is the beginning of the year for civil matters and here they give great thanks for the blessings of the past year and they seek blessing for civil affairs in the coming year but it also does something very important It quickens them for two other very important occasions in the seventh month. And the blowing of the trumpets was meant to quicken or to stir the people, rouse them up to their duty. On the tenth day of the month they had the day of atonement. You remember that remarkable time. where the high priest, this is the only time in the year that it happened, he would leave off his great and glorious garb and he would take incense and the blood of sacrifice into the Holy of Holies to make an atonement for the people while all the people were about praying and confessing their sins. This is the great image that Paul is talking about in Hebrews. He said, well, of course, we saw that that was only in type and in shadow because the high priest was only allowed to go in once in the year. And even the high priest wasn't clean from his sins. He had to sacrifice first for himself and then for the people, but not so with the fulfillment. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the spotless lamb of God, sinless in and of himself. shed his precious blood to take away the guilt of sins, ascended into the heavenly holies, offered atonement for his people, taking away their guilt, and then it said, he sat down. Once for all, done. And it's very significant that under this administration you notice that the bloody sacraments have been taken away. Not circumcision and the shedding of blood. Baptism and the pouring of water. Not the slaying of an animal for Passover, but bread and wine. As if with the shedding of his blood, no more blood would be shed. He did it once and for all. And unlike the priests in ancient times when they had to do it again the next year and again the next year, he simply sits down and rests. It's a finished, completed work. It's a striking preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ in these things. Finally, they had the Feast of Booths. This was on the 15th of the month. In other words, the beginning of the third cycle of seven. They would celebrate it for one week, and its primary purpose was to remember their wilderness wandering and God's preservation of them in the midst of these things. Now, of course, what have we recently had in First Peter? We're strangers and sojourners here. We have pitched a temporary tent in Tabernacle, And we are indeed in a precarious circumstance, but God cares for us and sees us safely through to heaven. They also offered other sacrifices. Again, the general preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sacrifices. This is basically what their year looked like. And we could go on because you'll remember that as you move through the years, every seventh year was a sabbatical year. for the release of slaves and for the resting of the land and of animals a sign of freedom in Jesus Christ being set free from bondage as it were and of course the 50th year, the year of Jubilee after seven cycles of seven you're going to have a Jubilee year which was without getting into all the details of it like the sabbatical year over plus I mean it's the sabbatical year with even additional benefits So what is the conclusion we can draw from all of this? Well, for our own study, we have to observe that all of these things were appointed by God himself. This can be hidden a little bit from English readers, but in Hebrew they are called moed. Moed. Which can be appointed rather than feasts. Appointed times. They are appointed times. It comes from a verb, ya'ad, which means to appoint. And we ask, who does the appointing exactly? Well, in these particulars, there's no question. Theologians call this the divine passive. Appointed. Appointed by whom? By God. It's understood that these things have been set apart. And this is very important. We're not going to do that much more with this today, but as we progress, this is going to become very important. Remember what the purpose of all of these ceremonial Sabbaths was. It's to preach Christ in the very same way that our Lord's Supper's purpose is to preach Christ to you. This is part of what it means to discern the Lord's body. And that wasn't new with the giving of the Lord's Supper. They were discerning the Lord's body in the Passover, if they were partaking of it rightly. And they were discerning the Lord's body when they would come in for the Day of Atonement. To see His body in those sacrifices. Feast of Booths. It was always the responsibility of the people of God to see Jesus Christ in those things. That should be one of the great bits of business for us this week. that God would give us spiritual eyes to see Jesus Christ in these things and I mean beyond the theology because when Paul reproved the Corinthian Christians for not discerning the Lord's body it wasn't because they didn't know the theology or this was the first time they ever heard it you can know the theology concerning the Lord's body and his presence in the sacrament and still fail to discern him on a particular Sabbath day because our hearts are carried away to other things and our minds are darkened by our sins and our eyes are closed this is one of the things that I pray most for you as a people that you have eyes to see Jesus Christ in these ordinances I know that you're looking at me and you're hearing my voice as it were but I pray that Jesus would make himself known to you by his spirit in these ways because he's promised to meet with you here You remember when he promised Moses, you erect the tabernacle, you put the ark in there, and I will meet with you there. You seek me there and you will find me there. I will meet with you there. And we have that same promise concerning these things. You want to find the Lord Jesus Christ? He's promised to meet with you in the sacraments, in the reading and preaching of the word and in prayer. He will be with you in those places, but we must have the spiritual eyes to see it. Because all of that great outward glory has been taken away. And do we still have eyes to see Jesus Christ in these very simple things? The second thing that I wanted to handle today, I wanted to introduce you to the mosaic economy. But I also want to talk about Jeroboam's attempt to substitute days and the Lord's disposition to Jeroboam's meddling in his holy days. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 12. You will remember the context. God had threatened Solomon. Because of your idolatry, this kingdom is not going to continue in your children, but it's going to be divided. And so it was, with the foolishness of Rehoboam, Jeroboam is actually raised up by God, even though he ends up being a disobedient instrument, to carry away those ten northern kingdoms. 1 Kings 12, verse 26. But Jeroboam's got some problems. Well, what's Jeroboam's problem? Well, the people of God are required to go up three times in the year to Jerusalem, that other kingdom. And he's afraid that their hearts are going to be carried away to the southern kingdom and Rehoboam. 1 Kings 12 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord God at Jerusalem. Then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah. And they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Just a quick note, since we spent a lot of time in Exodus 32, you recognize those words? That was the same thing that the people said concerning that golden calf. Behold, your gods that brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Here Jeroboam says that same thing. That's not good. The writer of 1 Kings knows that you're a reader of the Pentateuch. You're going to recognize those words and immediately recoil. This is not good, what is happening here. And he set the one in Bethel and the other put he in Dan. Now this was for the purpose of maximum convenience. Bethel was on the southern border before you would cross over to go to Jerusalem. Dan was in the northern border. So anybody throughout all the northern kingdom could have pretty convenient access to either one of these places to have their substitute worship. And that's what Jeroboam was trying to do. He was trying to make it convenient for them so that they won't go to Jerusalem. Verse 30. And this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one even unto Dan. Now notice, we've been talking about this a lot. They have violated their Christian liberty or acted contrary to it. They shouldn't obey the civil magistrate in this regard but disobey. Here it has become a sin that they have gone up to Dan according to the commandment of the king to worship. God has set them free and to obey human authorities in disobedience to God is to betray through liberty of conscience. You remember that from the confession of faith. As he made a house of high places and made priests of the lowest of the people which were not of the sons of Levi. You see the innovating mindset here. Once you overturn the one part and say well in principle we are not limited in our worship to the things that God has commanded he's already introduced the calf well what's to keep me from changing the priesthood as well that had been reserved to the Levites and in particular the sons of Aaron but Jeroboam has taken upon himself to make priests of whatever kind of people that he might find to take it up verse 32 and Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month this is a substitute for the feast of booths But you'll notice that the time has been changed, not the 7th month, the 15th day, but now the 8th month, the 15th day. He's changed the day and also the significance. It is like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made. So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month, now note this, which he had devised of his own heart. You see the difference between Moed, appointed days, and Jeroboam's day that he had devised in his own heart. And ordained a feast unto the children of Israel and he offered upon the altar and burnt incense. So look at the idolatrous matrix here. Do they think that they're worshipping Jehovah? Yes. This is not a first commandment problem. He's not introducing foreign gods. This is a second commandment problem. He is trying to get them to worship God in a way that God has not commanded them by means of idols. And there's a whole matrix of things here. The calves themselves. They're not going to go up to Jerusalem anymore, but to Dan and Bethel. They're not going to have priests of the sons of Aaron, but whatever sort, Jeroboam might choose. And they're not going to meet on the 7th month, the 15th day. They're going to do it on the 8th month, the 15th day. It's a whole complex, a whole idolatrous mindset. We can approach God any way that we want. But see, the reader of Deuteronomy right away knows that all of this is terrible. And if you're acquainted with Deuteronomy, you'll see it. The second commandment, explicitly forbidding the calf, the graven image, Deuteronomy chapter 5. Deuteronomy chapter 12, the command, you are not going to sacrifice in whatsoever place you are pleased to sacrifice, but you are going to sacrifice in the place of the Lord by God's choosing, and only there. Not Dan and Bethel. You're only going to have Aaron's sons for priests? Again, another thing where God had limited it to His own revealed will. And, these are substitute holy days that are devised of His own heart. The source is not God. Now again, the subtle reader of Deuteronomy is going to recognize this language. Deuteronomy chapter 12, what does Moses tell the people? Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. Now that's in the chapter on worship. You're not going to do what's right in your own eyes concerning the worship of God. and isn't it all the more striking when that's applied to Jeroboam and it said that this was a day devised in his own heart a day that is right in his own eyes but not pleasing to the Lord you know it wasn't until this week in my further study in these things that I began to understand a frequent complaint that I had heard from Well, you know, those Scottish Presbyterian types. They always said, if you introduce all these other holy days, it's going to take people away from the Sabbath day. And practically I knew that was true, but I never saw the biblical basis of it in quite the same way until I was looking at this text. Why do I say that? Jeroboam knows it will take their hearts away from the worship of God. That's why he's introducing it. And it works. I never understood it quite the way that I understood it this week. Jeroboam's whole design is to take him away from that worship of Jerusalem with its holy days. How am I going to do it? I'm going to try to make a form that's more attractive and more convenient for him right here. And it takes people's hearts away. As this very text said, their hearts were taken away and it caused the people to sin in the worship of the calf at Dan. Very striking. So what is God's disposition to holy days of men's devising? I have to read past the chapter division at this part. Look at 13.1. Now remember this whole idolatrous matrix. The focus of this passage is going to be the calf itself, but we shouldn't imagine that God was then pleased or simply passed over with approbation the holy day or the fact that he made priests of every low individual in the land. Even though the calf is mentioned, this is what grammarians call a synecdoche. Referring to a part to talk about the whole. The whole thing was displeasing to God, but just referencing it by referencing a part. So listen to what happens. Even as Jeroboam is in the midst of keeping his holy day, this is contiguous, no elapsed time here. And behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel. And Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. That's right where we left him at the end of the last chapter. And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord. Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name. And upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken. Behold, the altar shall be rend and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. So here you hear the Lord's displeasure. He sends a prophet immediately with the institution of this feast to condemn what's being done here and in the most striking terms. And Jeroboam's reaction? And it came to pass when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God which had cried against the altar in Bethel that he put forth his hand from the altar saying lay hold on him and his hand which he put forth against him dried up so that he could not pull it in again to him the altar also was rent the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord Jehovah is so provoked that he makes his displeasure known in word but also by a special miracle The collapsing of the altar and the pouring out of the ashes of that sacrifice. Very, very striking. We have an answer to the question that we have been prosecuting. What is the Lord's disposition to substitute holy days or the holy days that come out of the imagination of man? That's right in man's own eyes and devised according to his own mind. It's not pleased. and he judges it here by his word and by a special miracle to teach us what we should do now in our sermon in the morning worship we are going to take up that question right where we are leaving off what is a faithful Israelite to do? Jeroboam has been carried away into the psychology with all of the northern kingdom participating what do faithful Israelites living in the northern kingdom what do they do? let us pray together This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email by phone at 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The Prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.