So now, that segues us to the next part of this chapter, dealing with the elements or the substance or parts of instituted worship under the New Covenant. Now, we're gonna take paragraphs three and four together, prayer in the light of general and special revelation and principles that govern prayer from these two paragraphs, and then we'll follow up with paragraph five concerning additional elements of New Covenant worship. So let's read together paragraphs three and four. Prayer with thanksgiving, being one part of natural worship, is by God required of all men. But that it may be accepted, it is to be made in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will, with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love and perseverance, and when with others, in a known tongue. And four, prayer is to be made for things lawful, and 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. Now, I believe that most of this teaching or doctrine speaks for itself. It's quite straightforward and doesn't need a great deal of commentary. These things apply to both public and private prayer, while all men are called to pray by their mere existence at the hand of a sovereign creator. Think of Psalm 65, one and two. Praise is awaiting you, O God, in Zion, and to you the vow shall be performed. O you who hear prayer, to you all flesh will come. And since the fall, prayer must be offered through a mediator to be acceptable. It must be made in the name of the Son and by the aid, the grace-filled power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8, 26, the Apostle says, 1 John 5, 14 and 15, Now, this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. Prayer is not a mystical exercise, but one governed by the intellect. It must be done with understanding. Yet, it must and it absolutely or axiomatically does have the result that it affects our entire being, our mind, our will, and our emotions. Our love and adoration for God will be enlarged when we pray fervently with an attitude of devotion and fidelity to our triune God. Prayer must not be flippant. or presented with doubting hearts. And I think prayer should not be like asking the genie in the bottle for something. But if these prayers are presented according to His will, we can be, by faith, confident on the basis of the Word of God Yet we are reverent and humble in this, that we know that He will receive and answer according to His eternal decree and by His infinite wisdom and goodness for our good to conform us more and more to the image of His dear Son. That is His will, our sanctification. and like the persistent widow in Christ's parable in Luke 18, we must persevere in prayer, particularly for the mortification of sin and the sanctification of our souls. Like her, always ought to pray and not lose heart. Knowing this, And shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them?" He bears with us, folks. He's a good father. We are his adopted children. Christ has purchased our free access to God in the gospel. That's from chapter 21. I pray, Lord, grant us more grace to be diligent to go often to the throne of grace, to meet with our Heavenly Father through the Son by the power of the Spirit in prayer. And by the way, prayer is not hearing from God, guys. We hear from God from His Word. Prayer is our speaking to God. And I'm telling you, there's a whole lot of evangelicalism out there that just gets that wrong. suffer as a result of it. And when we pray with others, our confession says here, particularly in public worship, it must be done in a tongue or a language known to the people so that all in attendance can say yea and amen in their hearts to the content of that prayer. As Dr. Renahan points out, some have wondered whether the Reformed Confession's use of this statement in paragraph 3 somehow opens the door for the charismatic practice of speaking in tongues, and indicates the answer is a firm no. He explains, the confessions were not contemplating the gift of unknown tongues when they used this language. They were rather concerned with the use of Latin in the Roman mass, instead requiring the vernacular or the local area's language in public worship. Is everybody familiar with the practice in the Roman Catholic Church? Not all, but a lot, will do their mass in Latin. even in places where no one knows Latin. And so, there is no way for the common people to understand what that priest is saying. That is what is being directed and addressed, particularly by this part of our confession. And so, for example, if Jotniel Perez were here and leading worship, He should pray in English and not in Spanish, although he's fluent in that tongue, since English is the common language of the people here in Van, Texas. Everybody get that point? Now, turning to paragraph four, when it says that prayer is to be made for things lawful, it means that we should ask only for those things agreeable to God's Word, rather than what we may think or what we may want, or what we believe we need without reference to God's purposes revealed in the Scriptures. We may ask for, Lord, provide us transportation. Why? So that we can fulfill our duties. Go ye and work six days. We may need transportation. That's kind of asking for something material. It is in accordance with His Word and our duties as laid out in the Word. But if I'm just going there, God, I'd really like a Cadillac. Would you give me a Cadillac? No, that's probably not what is envisioned here by presenting prayer for all things lawful. We should pray, it says, for those living in 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2, Paul says, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and reverence. And to those who will come along after us, And our Confession cites 2 Samuel 7, 29, where King David prayed that God would bless his house, that the Davidic kings that would come after him from his loins would continue according to the covenant that God made with him before. But our Confession likewise says we should not pray for the dead. which is an express rejection, as unbiblical, Rome's practice of praying to spring souls out of purgatory, since the scripture clearly declares that death in this age fixes one's destiny in the age to come. For anyone who is here who does not belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, I hope you just heard those words, that death in this age fixes your eternal destiny for the age to come. Today is the day of salvation. Don't wait for tomorrow, for it may not be here for you. The final statement that we should not pray for those of whom it may be known that they have sinned, the sin unto death, comes from 1 John 5, 16. It's garnered quite a bit of disagreement and debate over the centuries. And for that reason alone, we ought to be cautious to declare one as having committed such a sin And Dr. Renahan indicates that this was meant to address one who had committed the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, defined as when anyone denies the truth of Christian doctrine, whereby he was enlightened and convinced by the Holy Ghost, and then maliciously blasphemes and persecutes the same, or one who has become a convinced and vehemently vocal apostate. Now, I'm not sure that any of us know particularly someone that might be coming to mind in that regard, but I would support or suggest to you that that's probably because this is something that ought to be considered very rare in our personal experience. I hear you. It's, Well, I think that's the central point, is that it's akin to Christ telling the apostles to, when you've done what your work is in one town, and they reject and reject and reject, kick the dust off your feet and move on to another town. That's clearly the dissemination of the Good News to the nations, starting with Jerusalem and into Samaria and into the other ends of the world. But I do think there is an aspect that would include more than just salvation? Do we pray for their health? Do we pray for those? Yeah, and I would say at this point in time, I think our confession says we don't pray for them, period. We leave all of that to our Sovereign Lord to determine. They know what the Gospel is. They've been enlightened, and they've tasted and seen that the Lord is good. They have been with the people of Christ. They've walked with us, and then they have vehemently rejected it and gone their own way. It's not like they don't have the intellectual understanding of what the Good News content is. We'd be cautious to declare someone to be falling into this thing here. And I'm sure you are, Cindy. I'm not suggesting that you're not. It's just that I have in my mind someone who possibly was, but I don't know. Absolutely. Anybody else on that before we move on? Okay, thanks for that question. All right, let's move on then to paragraph 5, which is the elements of worship. I throw in the word additional because we've already talked about one of the elements in paragraphs 3 and 4, prayer. Now our confession is going to bring to bear additional elements or parts, the substance of our worship. Let's read that paragraph together. The reading of the scriptures, preaching and hearing the Word of God, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord, as also the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper, are all parts, or the substance, of religious worship of God, to be performed in obedience to Him with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear. Kind of sounds like a little bit of what we talked about up in paragraph three regarding prayer. Moreover, solemn humiliation with fastings and thanksgivings upon special occasions ought to be used in an holy and religious manner. So in this first part of the paragraph, we see that God commands six things to be included as parts or permissible acts of religious worship. And we accordingly must gladly include them in our worship here at Grace, recognizing that the ordinances may be observed less frequently or frequently than every Lord's Day. No, our ordinance of baptism is certainly less frequent. And now, because of our change in practice, we are doing the Lord's Day Supper, you know, every week. And I pray that everybody here is benefiting by that change in our practice, but we recognize that other bodies, and we once did, in a less frequent way, and thus would not be an element in every Lord's Day worship. And then here at Grace, we also include the giving of tithes and offerings as an act of worship in accordance with 1 Corinthians 16, 1 and 2. So like prayer, these elements should be practiced with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear, or they do not constitute acceptable worship. Don't miss that. To simply come here with a mind that's focused somewhere else and call that worship, it's not acceptable worship. And when done so, our hearts are enlarged, conviction of sin is sincerely felt and confessed, and the joy of our salvation in Christ is warmly cultivated. Each of these are to be performed in obedience to God. For example, we should sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord. fervently, joyfully yet reverently, as we let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. That does not sound to me like it's okay to mumble the words of a hymn under our collective breath. And should we preach the whole counsel of God, not just what tends to fit our fancy at the time, Being ready in season and out of season to convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching? Absolutely. As the Apostle Peter told Jesus, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. The Holy Spirit has breathed God's words of eternal life into the Holy Scriptures. Why would we preach any other? Now, the second part of paragraph five deals with what we might refer to as two occasional elements. First, solemn humiliation with fastings, and second, thanksgivings, which are to be observed on special occasions. For example, Our Confession declares in chapter 26, paragraph 9, that elders are to be ordained, among other things, by solemnly setting them apart with fasting and prayer. It's a special occasion. Esther told Mordecai to gather the Jews and fast for her before she went in to the king of Persia to seek the deliverance of the Jews from the gallows of Haman. in Esther 4, 15 and 16, quite a special occasion in the life of the Jews. And we should conduct special observances of thanksgiving when God's unusual benevolence to the church or the nation arise. I recall reading in history of such observances being held in churches around this country at the end of World War II as an example, thanking God for his deliverance from our enemies abroad. And I think of Psalm 107, 8, and 9. These special occasions, too, must be observed in a holy and religious manner. in a way that honors Christ, edifies the body, and are done decently and in order. Now, with that, let's turn to paragraph six, where we're going to see the discussion of the place of worship in the New Covenant. And we're going to see some important principles as we read paragraph six concerning this place. Read with me. Neither prayer nor any other part of religious worship is now under the gospel tied unto or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed or towards which it is directed. But God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth. as in private families daily, and in secret each one by himself, so more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly nor willfully to be neglected or forsaken when God by His word or providence calls thereunto." Recall under the Old Covenant ceremonial law, worship was tied to a physical structure, the tabernacle first, then the temple after Solomon's work was completed, and a geographical place, ultimately in Jerusalem, the city of David. These types and shadows pointed to the coming of, and were fulfilled in, Jesus the Messiah, and abrogated in the new covenant. Jesus famously declared to the woman at the well in John 4, 21-23, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming. when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews." She was staring at him at that time. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. And the Apostle Paul would later affirm that he desired that men pray everywhere from 1 Timothy 2a. And New Covenant worship is not made more sacred or religious in a particular type of structure like a cathedral. or at a specific location inside a structure like the East End so as to be able to look to Jerusalem or Rome as the Roman Church contends. That just sounds pretty mystical, doesn't it? You must go to the East End of this building to look toward Jerusalem or Rome in order for your prayer to be acceptable. Now, rather than being tied to a specific place or structure, New Covenant worship is to be in spirit and in truth, in private families, and in secret, each one by himself, in our prayer closets of Matthew 6-6, and on the Lord's Day, in the public assemblies of true churches. I love this statement by Dr. Renaham, Worship is the lifeblood of every Christian. That's worthy of being said again. Worship is the lifeblood of every Christian. In other words, we simply cannot live, we cannot thrive without it. To claim to be a Christian and to, in effect, proverbially live on an island by yourself is not Christian. In a sense, the place is replaced by a people, the adopted children of God, individually, in families, and in our public assemblies. Dr. Sam Waldron argues, Recall that Paul told the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17, Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. The assemblies of this new spiritual temple are to be prized by the people of God just as much as the people of God in the Old Testament prized the worship at the physical temple." That's the conclusion of his comment. The Confession affirms that our corporate worship, as compared with our private worship, is to be treated more solemnly. and we are not to carelessly nor willfully neglect or forsake assembling together on the Lord's day, which is when God by His Word calls thereunto," from Hebrews 10, 25. So I ask us to consider, as a point of application, if you will, why would any true Christian who understands that worship is his lifeblood ever ever carelessly or willfully forsake assembling with the brethren. I hope that convicts all of us about the importance of assembling on the Lord's Day for our public worship. We should joyfully and sincerely do all we can to not allow the seemingly endless cares and concerns of our lives get in the way of meeting with our brothers and sisters for corporate worship. This should be our heart's cry. Which now transitions us to paragraph seven. where we will deal with the time of worship under the new covenant. There are two primary points to grasp in this paragraph seven. There is a moral or natural law aspect and a positive law aspect of how often and when God's people are to assemble for corporate worship in the new covenant as compared to the old covenant. So let's read the first half of this paragraph seven together. As it is the law of nature that in general a proportion of time by God's appointment be set apart for the worship of God, so by His Word, in a positive moral and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto Him." So we see that the law of nature written on the heart of man at creation commands the creature to set aside a proportion of time for the singular purpose of the worship of his creator. That is known by the image of God impressed upon the heart of the created man. But what proportion of time compared to all his other labors or pursuits, you ask? The Confession states that God, by His Word, in a positive moral and perpetual commandment, appointed one day in seven as that precise proportion of time for a Sabbath rest unto God. This was purely God's prerogative to establish, and He did so by appointment, or special revelation. He did not leave that up to man to determine. Dr. Renahan indicates that, quote, the appointment of the specific proportion must be understood as positive moral. In other words, an element of the moral law specifically defined by direct command. But unlike other purely positive laws added to the moral law in the time of the Old Covenant, which passed away with the fulfillment of that covenant, for example, the ceremonial and judicial laws, The proportion of time element of this moral law, instituted by direct command of God, is both universal and perpetual. It binds all men everywhere in all ages. We know this because in the fourth commandment in Exodus 20, 8 through 11, the command is based in and tied directly to God's activity in the creation week. Recall, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." God worked six days. Creature works six days. God rested one day. Creature rests one day. That's the proportion. And note that it applies to all, both Israel and the stranger within her. But now the next question addressed by this paragraph is, what specific day of the week shall this one in seven proportion of time be observed? Let's read on now, picking up with where we left off in the paragraph. which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week, being abolished." Unlike the precise portion of time, this appointment of the specific day of the week to be observed is a purely positive aspect of the direct command tied to a covenant from the beginning of the world or creation. Think of the covenant of works or covenant of creation, which was then restipulated later in the old covenant. to the resurrection of Christ, or the new creation, or the covenant known as the New Covenant. It was the seventh, or last day of the week, our Saturday. But this purely positive aspect was changed by the Lawgiver to the first day of the week, our Sunday, to be observed from the resurrection of Christ to the end of this age as the Christian Sabbath, called the Lord's Day, Revelation 1.10. And to make this point definitive, first the Savoy, and later our confession, was added to the Westminster, the final phrase, the final observation of the last day of the week being abolished. Today, no men and women, whether Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian, should be gathering together for worship as an appointed Sabbath unto the Lord on the seventh day of the week. Some over the centuries since the Reformation have rejected these things for various reasons. Some argue that the Sabbath principle still applies. The day has not been changed, and we ought to worship on Saturday, like the Seventh-day Adventist church. While others argue that because the day of corporate worship has been changed, the Sabbath cannot be a moral law and still binding in the New Covenant. For example, our New Covenant theologian brothers and sisters. The answer to their dilemma lies in rightly working through the concepts of the moral and positive law aspects of this creation ordinance of the Sabbath. As Dr. Waldron observes, only a new creation ordinance can change or alter a creation ordinance. And indeed, Christ has inaugurated a new creation. But when was that completed? At His resurrection. So God rested from His work, creating all things on the seventh day in creation. Christ rested from His work of redemption on the first day of the week at His resurrection, displaying the Father's acceptance of the finished work of Christ as a sufficient sacrifice for all of His people. Let me read a quote from Dr. Waldron that I found quite helpful to wrap up this point. If this problem is to be resolved, we must first understand the principle by which the day of worship is appointed in the Creation Ordinance. The designation principle must be understood. In Genesis 2-3 it says that God set apart the seventh day because He rested on that day. Recognizing that what God did in redemption was so great that nothing less than the concept of a new creation could describe it, we must understand that God in the new creation uses the same designation principle. The new creation Sabbath is designated on the same principle as that of the old creation Sabbath. It is the day of God's rest. The first day of the week is the day on which Christ's labors to atone for the sins of His people came to an end and He entered His rest in resurrection glory. The Lord's Day is the eighth day, so to speak, the day of new beginnings. As the seventh day was associated with and commemorated the old work of creation, so the first day is associated with and commemorates a new creation. I hope you find that helpful to address this issue. So what I thought I'd do is just put together a brief summary concerning the time of worship in the New Testament or New Covenant. So we have different aspects. We have a moral aspect, a proportion, That's revealed by the light of nature. Then we have a positive moral aspect, and that is the proportion is one in seven. That is revealed by special revelation by the appointment through the command of God himself. And then the final purely positive aspect is the specific day of the week. Now, I've tried to divide these up into three things. A lot of folks will just divide them up into the two, moral versus positive. I like this simply because it keeps my mind straight that there is perpetual, universal change in time by the new creation. Does that make sense to everybody? And that is why we worship on the first day of the week when that new creation was established. Now let's wrap up our chapter on religious worship in the Sabbath day by looking at paragraph eight, the keeping of the Sabbath. I'm not gonna turn that around. Our paragraph eight is going to provide to us some principles of observing or keeping the Sabbath. Let's read together. The Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering their common affairs aforehand, do not only observe a holy rest all day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship So, from a broad perspective, we immediately say there are some things that we are not to do, and then there are some things that we are to do in order to properly keep the Sabbath. So, let's work through some of these principles to determine what are we free to do and what are we bound to do. First, we ought to prepare for the Sabbath both spiritually and physically. We ought to prepare for the Sabbath We should make it a habit of preparing our minds and hearts on Saturday evening, reading the word and praying as a family before drifting off to sleep, looking forward to the privilege and blessing of worshiping our triune God with our brothers and sisters in the morning. We shouldn't discount the value of that. should we? We should be mentally and emotionally, spiritually preparing our hearts and minds to come and meet with our Creator and our Redeemer, with our brothers and sisters. And then second, we should prepare by doing what we can to order our affairs to avoid having to do them on the Sabbath. do what we can to do our shopping, do our daily things that will help prevent us from having to have the burden of doing them on a day that we are to set aside for the worship of God. This will help us be able to observe a holy rest the entire day. Avoid allowing our works, words, and thoughts about our worldly, which here is just meant secular, not sinful, employments and recreations hinder our central focus on the purpose of the Sabbath, to rest from said labors and pursuits for the high calling of the worship of God. The backdrop to this statement in the Confession, historically speaking, was the King of England's Declaration of Sports, issued in the early 1600s, that the clergy were being commanded to read to their congregations. It specifically called for pursuing various recreations in sports after attending worship. on the Lord's Day. The king was declaring to the clergy, you shall make your people participate in all of these worldly recreations on the Lord's Day. Well, the English separatists railed against that as violating the Sabbath, and they thus included statements like our confession in the reformed confessions that they generated. Third, and we're now going to move into what we ought to do, make the day of the Sabbath one devoted to worshiping the triune God both publicly and privately. We are bound to do so, but the key, in my view, to said observance is first and foremost a right heart attitude. Dr. Walt Chantry wrote a book entitled, Call the Sabbath a Delight, highlighting the words of the prophet from Isaiah 58, 13, and 14. If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the Lord honorable, and shall honor him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the Lord. And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the Lord has spoken." What can I add to that? So fundamentally, we must ask ourselves, do we delight in the Lord's day, and more particularly, the Lord of that day? And fourth, we should perform works of necessity and mercy. These things are exceptions to the prohibition to do work on the Sabbath. These things, for example, like the work of policemen and firemen, the work of doctors, nurses, those who are performing of necessity and mercy. We still need people, policemen and firefighters and ambulance drivers, those kinds of folks to help people in need, even if it's the Lord's Day. And likewise, when someone is in a situation Difficult, straight, and mercy needs to be extended to help them. It is permittable to do work to help alleviate that deal. Now, we're not talking about the littlest things, guys. We don't want to strain out the gnat. In other words, this doesn't give us liberty to do whatever, and we call it a work of necessity or a work of mercy, all right? So, again, going back to the hard attitude. Am I truly delighting in the day of the Lord and in that Lord of the day?" That really is, I think, a sum of what these five paragraphs or six paragraphs have to teach us concerning religious worship and the Sabbath day. We've got about three or four minutes for questions or comments. Anyone have any additional questions or thoughts? Well, I hope you found that helpful when it comes to looking at the critical issue of our worship in the New Covenant under that doctrine of Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. Let me pray for us, and then we'll prepare for worship. Our good Father, we thank you for your great salvation that you've wrought in the hearts of your people by and through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. We thank you that you have instituted and told your people what you desire for them to do. in the elements of our new covenant worship. We thank you, you did not leave that to us to decide. We thank you for the grace that you've given to us and the spirit of Christ that illumines our minds to search your word and discern what we are to do from your word. And we thank you for the grace that you give to each of your people to then go about that privilege and blessed duty to do just that in spirit and in truth. Father, we thank you for the truth that we no longer have to travel to Jerusalem for you to hear us. We no longer have to look toward a place or be in a specific building In order for our worship to be acceptable to you, we can do that right in our own prayer closet in Van, Texas, and in this building that you've provided to this precious body of yours here in Van, Texas. We thank you that you ordained a specific proportion of time that your people would set aside for the worship of our triune God. For God, we would have to confess to you that if it was left up to us, we not only would not set aside any time, we would get it wrong left and right. So thank you, God, for instituting these things and giving us faith to believe and trust that this is exactly what you want your people to do to present acceptable worship to you. And Father, we thank you for the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath. We thank you that you have indeed given to your people in the new covenant as a result of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, where you accepted the finished work of Christ for the complete and utter atonement and reconciliation of your people to you. This new creation has been established. We are thankful for these things. And we ask, oh God, that you might do a work in our hearts to delight Not only in the day of the Lord, but in the Lord of the day. Help us now as a body with one mind, one voice, one spirit, worship together our triune God in spirit and in truth. And in Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.