August 22, 2017 Show with John Price on “Exclusive A Cappella Worship Defended (Part #1 of 3: Theology)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 22nd day of August 2017.

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I hope you enjoyed that acapella music because that is what we are going to be discussing today actually.

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We're going to be discussing exclusive acapella worship defended and this is going to be taking place with someone

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I've been trying to get on Iron Sharpens Iron radio for years and I finally now have the opportunity for the very first time to do so.

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His name is John Price. He is pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York and he's the author of Old Light on New Worship Musical Instruments and the

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Worship of God, a theological historical and psychological study and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

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John Price. Thank you very much Chris. It's good to be with you and glad to speak with you.

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Yes and this is a very divisive topic obviously.

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This is a topic that not specifically acapella music in the church or exclusive acapella music in the church but music in general as you know probably divides more

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Christians than any other issue that we can think of even doctrinal or theological issues outside of worship and I am excited about this subject because you have written

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I think the best work available that I have ever seen anyway on the issue of a defense of exclusive acapella worship in the church today but before we go into the subject at hand

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I want to first have our listeners hear something about Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York where you are a service pastor.

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Well my wife and I after I received training to be a pastor we moved back to Rochester.

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We had lived here before and we began and to start this new church.

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That was back in 1995, 22 years ago and the

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Lord has been very gracious to us and gathered a group of believers together here who are committed to Christ and to follow his word and they are sincere and earnest in worship and it's a privilege, it's a delight for me to be their pastor.

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You know after 22 years you look back and you see all the different things that God did in preserving you and in sustaining you and it's just an amazing thing to see that we're still here and by God's grace there's a church here to worship with us.

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Amen and describe the church a little bit about its theology. I know that you happen to be a

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Reformed Baptist Church just as the congregation where I'm a member, Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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Tell us a little bit more about that. Yes we are a what you would call a

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Reformed Baptist Church. We hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession as our confession of faith and we are,

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I guess I would say that we're a relatively small group of people by other standards, but the

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Lord has been gracious and given us good believers who want to love and serve one another and so yes we do hold to the confession of faith.

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Yes the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, also known as the Second London Confession, nearly identical to the

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Westminster Confession that the conservative Presbyterians adhere to and very much in common with the

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Three Forms of Unity and the Savoy Declaration with the difference that it is a

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Baptist confession and would teach as we believe that scripture teaches that churches are autonomous in their government.

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There is no hierarchical structure outside the local congregation nor higher than the local elders other than Christ himself.

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Would that be correct as far as a description of your church? That would be true and that point is important in regard to what we're speaking of here today because when we did come to the view that we should no longer have any instruments in the church, that was back in 2003, we were able to make that decision on our own as what we saw as the will of Christ for us in the church and we did not have to submit ourselves to any higher authority.

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Yes and of course the other key distinction between Reformed Baptists and the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith would be that obviously baptism is viewed differently and even the covenant in certain areas would be viewed differently where the

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Reformed Baptists believe in baptism by immersion in water of a professing believer, a professing repentant believer, and those who are truly regenerate being in the covenant whereas many of the

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Pato Baptists if not most of the Pato Baptists or those who baptize infants believe that one is truly a member of the covenant upon their baptism as an infant whether they have even as an older child whether they have faith or not but the being a true member of the covenant does not necessitate that you are a member of the elect or what have you but that's a subject for a different day in a different time and before we get into the subject at hand, exclusive acapella worship offended, tell us about your own upbringing, the religion of your youth, and what providential circumstances the

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Lord brought about in your life that drew you to himself and saved you? Well I think

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I should begin when I was five or six years old my parents they were not believers but they did attend a liberal

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Presbyterian church and this is over in Albany, New York where I grew up and the one thing

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I remember is we had a Sunday school teacher and she taught us the Ten Commandments and she was very diligent about that, about our memorizing them and as I grew up I never forgot the

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Ten Commandments. In later years my family stopped going to church and my own life went in a sinful direction.

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After high school I joined the Navy, I was in the Navy for four years and then

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I went to college and it was when I was in my third year of college I was 25 years old.

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Those commandments had always troubled me and there were always at different points different levels of conviction but I came to the point where on one

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Sunday afternoon I knew that God was dealing with me and I needed to I needed to begin to look toward Him.

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So I went to a friend of mine who gave me a Bible. I went home that night and began to read in 1

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John chapter 1 and 2 and I hadn't heard or touched the

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Bible in probably 15 -20 years. I read in 1

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John chapter 2 verse 15 where John says, do not love the world for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the father but is from the world and the world is passing away but he who does the will of the father shall abide forever.

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When I read those verses I was convinced at that point that the

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Bible was the Word of God and in some way the Holy Spirit convinced me of that and I knew

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I needed to continue to read to read this book and so I was out at Kodak at that time in Rochester working as a summer student and I went to work the next day with the

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Bible in my hand started reading during my lunch hour the Bible taking home with me every night.

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I just couldn't get enough of it and then I went through a long period perhaps about 10 months where I knew the

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Bible was true but I was still struggling with my old sinful and worldly life and I was kind of back and forth in that gray area if you could call it that and some of the college students where I was attending college went on a retreat for a weekend

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I went with them and during that retreat they sang a hymn from Psalm 51 where David says created me a clean heart oh

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God and I knew at that point that I did not have a clean heart and that is what

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I needed above everything else and it was for me a terrifying experience because I realized that I was a sinner on God's work in God's world and I had no right to even breathe my next breath and if it was

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God's will he could have taken my next breath away and sent me to hell and I it would have been just so the

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Lord had mercy on me I went back to school I continued to read the Bible I came to first Corinthians chapter one and verse nine where where Paul says

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God is faithful through whom you have been called into fellowship with his son

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Jesus Christ our Lord and I knew at that point that this is what was happening to me that God was calling me into Christ and then

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I continued into chapter six where in verse 20 Paul says you have been bought with a price therefore glorify

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God in your body and I knew what that went meant for me that I had been bought by the blood of Christ to serve him and then that was the beginning of my peace and my joy the joy of assurance that the

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Lord had saved me from my sin so that's a brief summary of what the

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Lord did in in bringing me into his kingdom and my own interaction with the scriptures and how did you know that how did you know that the

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Lord had put a call upon your life to become a minister and what led you specifically into reformed

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Baptist theology and to a reformed Baptist church well I had a good friend in college who had become a

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Christian and the two of us went looking for churches for a church to attend you know we we knew we should be in a church and we wandered around not knowing where to go and there were various churches we went to and nothing seemed to be preaching the word to us and so one

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Sunday we ended up going by invitation of another student to a reformed Baptist church in Albany and that church is still there in Albany New York and when we went there we just were struck with the fact of the seriousness of the people here that the word of God was being preached and and so we determined that this is where we should attend church we were both baptized in that church we became members and that that was a reformed

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Baptist church and so it was a kindness of God to me that the first church where I ever really learned doctrine was a reformed

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Baptist church and I didn't have to unwind other teachings like so many others have to do so that was what led me into the reformed

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Baptist church and as a young Christian I began to have desires to minister the gospel and to preach the word

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I spoke with my pastors about that desire and over time opportunities opened up in the church to teach

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Sunday school or to preach a sermon and over a period of time it became clear that it was

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God's will for me to pursue this and I ended up going to the

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Trinity Ministerial Academy down in Monfield New Jersey and spent four years there training to be a pastor and so then in 1995 as I said before my wife and I we came to Rochester New York and began the church planning work here and I'm assuming that since you said that you as a congregation came to the conclusion that you were no longer going to be including musical instruments in your worship service there had to be some kind of a journey that you went on that you went through before that happened where you perhaps were using musical instruments never thought anything of it and then something began to prod your conscience about it

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I'm assuming well what happened was we we had we had been using the piano and the piano is what

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I was accustomed to in the Reformed Baptist churches and I knew and I studied the regulative principle and I always wondered about the piano and the regulative principle of worship is simply that we must bring what

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God commands into his worship we cannot add or subtract from his commands and this would be exclusively using the

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New Testament as a guide correct that that's correct right and you know

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I always had a question about the use of the piano how did it get there where was it how did we arrive at it from the scriptures it was always that question in the back of my mind what happened was another pastor friend of mine in another

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Reformed Baptist church had begun to teach his congregation and their church had begun to introduce other musical instruments in addition to the piano so this caused me to have some concern and I knew this fellow pastor personally so I sat down and I wrote a letter to him about it expressing my concern

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I remember the original letter was nine pages and it grew to 16 pages as I continued to look into the subject then it became a little paper

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I remember at one point it was 40 pages long and I would bring it to a fellowship of other

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Reformed Baptist pastors where we meet and I would give them this paper that I was working on in regard to the use of musical instruments uh eventually it got to be 125 pages long and it fell into it

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I gave it I sent it off to another pastor who heads up a pastor's conference and he called me and he said he would like me to make copies of this paper and bring it down to the conference so I did that and at that particular conference there was a brother by the name of David Simpson there at the conference and David Simpson is a publisher from Texas he picked up a copy of this paper he brought it home and read it he called me about six months later and said that he wanted to publish this as a book and so eventually that's that's what happened the book the paper was published in the book and so so the the long the short story is that what it what started out as a very small letter a short letter to a brother expressing my concern ended up as a book and it was never my intention

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I never sat down and said I need to write a book on this subject and that that is just the way whole thing happened yeah our listeners may be uh some of them anyway

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I'm sure that most of them have some familiarity with reformed baptists but there are

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I'm getting new listeners joining the iron sharpens iron radio audience it seems every single day and they are from varied backgrounds uh just to let our listeners know most reformed baptist churches do use musical instruments especially something like a piano in more recent years nearly anything goes instrumentally guitars and so on but there was a time even not long ago in the 1980s when

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I first became a Christian where that would be nearly unheard of you the most you would see is a piano or organ or something like that uh but and the churches uh today that are worshiping exclusively with acapella music would primarily include the reformed presbyterian church of north america also known as the covenanters the free church of scotland uh the primitive baptists uh although they are divided over this most of them are acapella many in the plymouth brethren are acapella the church of christ which also has a division but there is a

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I think a predominant number of them that exclusively worship acapella and the mennonites also and uh outside of that group that would be more closely linked to protestantism or evangelicalism you have the eastern orthodox who for centuries have never uh had uh musical instruments and still don't in their worship but uh why is it that this uh subject is so important and why should we consider it to be so important well

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I think this subject is important because we are talking about the worship of god and the really the highest priority of the church is involved in the worship of god there there's perhaps no more important um aspect of our gathering together than our worship so everything that we do in worship should be important to us um we're worshipping a god who is holy he is jealous over his worship and so every aspect every part of what we do in the worship of god should be a matter of primary concern to us um also this is something that we do every lord's day um every sunday we gather and we worship and whatever we do in regard to the use of musical instruments or so and so on whatever we do is something we do on every lord's day so this is not something that takes place uh once a year on a special holiday or something this is the um recurring um worship of every lord's day and then i would add third that we we are entering into god's house and in god's house we are doing we must do what is pleasing to him um everything that we do in his house must be of the highest importance to us also i would i would say that the present context in which we live in evangelicalism today compels us as christians who want to be biblical to be careful in regard to this subject because we see how the evangelical church around us uh their worship is dominated by the use of musical instruments we would we would hardly even expect to go into an evangelical church and not see a band front and center in the worship of the church and so the fact that we are living at this particular time in history which i know we're going to cover the history of musical instruments in the church uh in our second interview lord willing but the time in which we live is unprecedented it is unparalleled in the history of the christian church in the 2000 year history of the church and and so it demands that we pay attention to this subject this is not something that we can ignore this is not something that we can hope will simply go away this is a subject that is of the primary importance and especially to pastors who it is their responsibility to order the worship of god and conduct his worship in a way that is according to his word and so this is a subject that must be of the primary importance to christians i i've had i had one uh one brother um say to me at one point that he thought that i was focused on a minor issue and my response to that is if it's so minor then just take the instruments out of your church and be done with them but if you if you try to do that you'll find how important they really are people have an emotional attachment to the use of musical instruments in whatever form they may use them but this is this is of great importance to the to to the church it is of great importance to the purity and the order of the church uh the uh what was what are some of the difficulties that you faced in dealing with this subject well i think the the primary difficulty is that um people often realize that this is a subject that's going to be very hard to deal with in the in the life of the church um it is divisive um it is controversial and people often would rather just hope that this thing doesn't become too big of a problem um hopefully we can get through this without rocking the boat too much and and you know but but what we really need to be able to do is to have the um attitude of the bereans and to search the scriptures to see whether these things are true to determine what does the bible teach on this subject of musical instruments yes i uh i wasn't exaggerating before when i think when i said that i think this is if not the most divisive issue in the church today meaning music uh music in general even if you leave acapella music out of the equation uh there are you know it's very common for even people who may have strong theological convictions in one direction or another let's say that they are full -blown calvinists thoroughly reformed in those soteriology but who will join and become a member of a church that may disagree with them on even core theological issues just because they prefer the music and of course you have uh people who have extraordinary gifts from god in the musical area who feel deprived uh for not being able to use those gifts in a public worship service if they were in a church such as yours that is exclusive acapella uh but uh before i i go to a break let me let me let me just insert for a moment um in rochester we have the eastman it's a very well -known school of music and we we would have over the years students come from the eastman school of music these were these were musicians and they were extremely skilled but they were convinced of this position and they love to worship with us and uh we have a reformed presbyterian church in in rochester as well and some of them were over there and the same thing was true of them so these are these are students who are extremely skilled in the use of musical instruments but they recognized that when they came to god's house they must do things according to his word and they were they were pleased to sing with us acapella and uh a couple of things that i think before we go to a break we should make clear number one on a couple of those denominations that we mentioned the reformed presbyterian church of north america and the free church of scotland are not only exclusively acapella in their worship they're exclusive psalmody in their worship they only sing from the psalter from the psalms of the old testament they do not sing uh extra biblical hymns and uh that is not the position that you hold am i correct it is it's exclusively in regard to musical instrumentation that you believe that we should uh use exclusively the voices of the congregation in the praise and singing to our god and not musical instruments that that's correct i i am not an exclusive psalmist and um the issue that we're dealing with here today is is the use of musical instruments in the in the house of god and um the the question of what you know what we what do we actually sing is a separate issue and i believe that we can sing psalms and hymns or hymns and songs that are of human composition um and i do believe that the bible has a very high standard for that for what we should sing if we read uh colossians 3 and verse 16 let the word of christ dwell richly within you um and and teaching and admonishing one another uh the bible really does give us a high standard so um of what should be sung but i you're correct i am not a an exclusive psalmist uh the other thing that i wanted to have you clarify is uh what for lack of a better term is your agenda when you uh set out to write this book and you seek to share this conviction of yours with others there are some as you may know uh who have a conviction for exclusive acapella singing and and also there are other things in the christian life and belief that would be in this category where uh people use it as a test of fellowship people will say if you use instruments you cannot have any fellowship with me at all i would and some would even go as far in a cultic manner to say i doubt that you are even regenerate that would be an extreme case of course but uh how do you respond to someone who would be apprehensive about your agenda who may think that you are uh bringing about divisiveness and derision amongst the assembly amongst the brethren you're going to be causing church splits as a result of this how what is your agenda in this and if you could set the record straight for everybody listening well i i appreciate that question um i i certainly uh do not look at this as a test of fellowship or of one's christian uh standing um and i certainly do have fellowship with many brethren who i um do not agree with on this subject um i'm thankful for that fellowship and uh my purpose in the book and in having these interviews with you is not to be controversial um my purpose is hopefully to edify um brethren who may need to think through this subject and to be helpful in that regard i do think that we are exposed to dangers in our generation um the dangers around us are very evident and i i believe that some of our reformed baptist churches have um they're certainly under the pressure um to go in a different direction um and and some have succumbed to that and so i have a concern i i do not want to see that happen and so i would hope that um even if i am not able to convince uh my brethren to remove their instruments from the church entirely and sing acapella and and even if they are uh still believe that they can use their piano um i hope that i can still convince them not to go further we're going to uh go to a break right now brother sorry to interrupt you like that and if anybody would like to join us with a question of your own our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside of the usa and you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter let's say you disagree with your own pastor on the issue or something like that or you perhaps you're a pastor and you disagree with your denomination on it we will respect your wishes and allow you to remain anonymous but if it's not about a personal and private matter please give us at least your first name city and state and your country of residence chrisarnson at gmail .com

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that's batterydepot .com hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am

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.com we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor welcome back this is chris arns and if you just tuned us in our guest today is john price pastor of grace baptist church of rochester new york an author of old light on new worship musical instruments in the worship of god a theological historical and psychological study we are addressing the theme exclusive acapella worship defended and this is going to be god willing part one of a three -part interview with two other dates in the future that we'll announce in a little bit where we are addressing and focusing on different aspects of this theme the theological aspect is our focus today and the next two interviews that we have with john are going to be on the historical and psychological aspects of musical instruments in the worship of god and if anybody would like to join us on the air our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com if you have a question for john price on this issue and as i said please always give your first name city and state and country of residence unless you're asking about a personal and private matter that would require or at least compel you to remain anonymous this book i just want to read to our listeners an endorsement for this book that you've written many of our listeners if not most listeners to iron sharpens iron radio would be very familiar with the name morris roberts who is the former editor of banner of truth magazine and he says i enthusiastically recommend this book on congregational worship it is a great relief to have access to a scholarly modern examination of the question what musical instruments are and which are not permissible in public worship of god for clarity and fullness of treatment yet at the same time for courtesy and pastoral wisdom this short study on an aspect of the regulative principle is first class i highly recommend it to church members as well as to ministers of the gospel and uh when he when he did dr roberts morris roberts referred to this as a short study it's actually the lengthiest study on this subject that i've ever seen uh in print i'm referring to i mean it is quite a substantial work on the subject all right you're right i think it's about 250 some pages in length um chris if i if i might just follow up on the previous question oh sure before the break you you mentioned um concerns over unity and so on and uh i just wanted to mention that you know that is a concern of mine as well and in the book i have an appendix that's devoted uh to the subject it's called an exhortation to unity um and i address uh unity between pastors and their people uh unity within the congregation and unity between churches and i give some brief um encouragement in how to to uh to deal with this subject uh when it does arise in those different settings so um you know i i certainly do not want to see division sewn between brethren but um you know we are dealing with the word of god and we're uh truth and we must um we must all have the desire to know what the truth is in this subject yes and uh morris roberts actually brings up another uh fact that i wanted to have you uh mention at the outset as well before we get into the meat of the theology regarding the subject uh morris roberts uh describes this as a book on congregational worship uh there are other areas that christians divide over in regard to the regulative principle of worship even those that claim to adhere to the regulative principle of worship disagree on things such as choirs uh praise bands praise groups special music at all solos duets trios uh and some would go uh to the extreme of saying anything outside of the congregation singing is really a violation of the scriptures uh and the regulative principle which would be obviously as we already mentioned a belief that our worship exclusively must be taken from the new testament so is this book and is your view also a view promoting strictly congregational singing um it would be um in the old testament we had the levitical priests who were singers in the temple worship in jerusalem um in the new testament we have no group that is designated or set apart to sing um we have no levites levitical priesthood any longer we are all priests unto god and when paul commands the church in colossians 3 16 and in ephesians 5 19 to sing with thankfulness of the lord um he is commanded that is a command that is given to the entire congregation there's no one who is exempt from that command and there is no special group that is set apart to carry out that command those are commands that are given to the entire congregation well let's start getting into the biblical evidence that caused you to totally rethink your understanding of music in the worship of god especially in regard to the use of musical instruments which you eventually came to dismiss for use in public worship i'm assuming as most people that i know who have a strict acapella position in regard to their public worship services they would have no problem with during a fellowship gathering informal fellowship gathering somebody playing amazing grace on the piano or listening to your favorite recording artist that is christian that uses musical instruments and that kind of thing that people who are musicians should use the gifts that have been given to them and they can freely do that but i'm assuming that you would allow that even in christian gatherings but not the uh the primary gathered assembly when it is uh there weekly to worship right our focus here in this study is on the worship in the house of god that's the focus of our study and people may do different things in the privacy of their own homes um and we find that even within the scriptures and there's liberty there but when the subject that we are addressing here today is what do we do when we come in to worship in the house of god and what we are looking at uh is really what is called um solo scriptura or the scripture alone should guide us and it is sufficient to guide us in all of our faith and practice and especially in our worship in god's house and uh it has come to be known as what is called the regulative principle of worship which is that when we come to worship we must be guided by god's commands and we must not add to his commands or subtract from his commands um god alone has the prerogative and he alone has the right to tell us the creatures what to do in the worship of his house he alone knows what is for his glory and honor and he alone knows what is for our good and our spiritual uh edification and so when we come to worship we must limit ourselves to what he has commanded only in doing so can we have any certainty that he accepts and receives and is pleased with our worship once we step outside of his commands we have no reason to believe that he accepts it that he is pleased with such worship so worship must be according to the commands of god in the scriptures um a primary example of this of the regulative principle of worship would be the event in leviticus chapter 10 where nadab and abihu come with strange fire which the lord had not commanded and that was what made it strange it was what the lord had not commanded them to bring it was outside they had stepped outside of god's commandments and immediately they were consumed with fire and the lesson was that those who approach god must treat him as holy and so that is a an example a demonstration of the jealousy of god over his worship that it be according to his commands um i i can remember an illustration of the regulative principle and uh there's a husband and his wife is going to have a birthday so he goes down to the home depot to buy her a birthday present and he buys a big power tool he brings it home he wraps it up in paper he gives it to her on his birth on her birthday and when his wife opens it she looks at it and she says to him honey this is what you wanted not what i want that's what we do that's what we do when we bring things that are outside of god's commands we are bringing things that we want and not what god wants and so uh the regulative principle is is the general principle that we're dealing with here and what we're looking at in our study is the specific application of that principle to the use of musical instruments um and what we find is that god has um made it very clear that musical instruments are part are under his regulation in his worship i think it would be helpful just to just to take a big picture um look at the big picture for just a moment yes in regard to this study uh our bibles are divided into the old and the new testaments and when we look at the whole bible we see in the old testament that there are a wide variety of musical instruments that are used in the worship of god we find them mentioned in the in the book of psalms we find them mentioned in in the historical narratives of the kings and the samuels and so on so we find this wide variety of instruments that are used in in the house of god in the worship of god now we should understand that we are speaking here about the instruments being used in the temple in jerusalem and that's what we're that's the only structure and the only place where those instruments were being used in god's house in his worship um now we find that in the old testament when we come to the new testament we find a complete silence in regard to the use of musical instruments in the church we find no command we find no example in any church in the new testament of a musical instrument ever being used we find not a shred of evidence not a word in regard to musical instruments in the new testament church yeah they're mentioned only about referring to heaven correct pardon me musical instruments are only mentioned in the new testament in reference to heaven am i right on that well you're referring to the book of revelation yes yes and john is seeing his vision of heaven figuratively in terms of the temple the old testament temple worship and that's what's taking place and when he mentions the harps he's uh revelation chapter 14 in verse 2 he explains that i heard he said the voice which i heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps and so he's speaking of the voice and that's that's what the hearts are in the book of revelation is uh the voices of the saints in heaven as they sung so that would be correct and and maybe i should say that we find no evidence of any musical instrument being used by a church on earth um so the question is why is it this way and how did this come about the answer is that in the old testament god commanded those instruments to be used in his temple worship and now when we come to the new testament the temple worship of jerusalem has been abolished and we must look to christ and his apostles for the worship of the new testament church and we find no command no example anywhere of a musical instrument being used we one of the common um thoughts that people have is they go back into the psalms they go back into the old testament they find the instruments used and they bring them into the new testament church um but we are not we are not temple worshipers in jerusalem any longer that worship has been abolished we are gospel worshipers in the new covenant and christ and his apostles christ as head of the church his apostles as the foundation stones of the church they have the authority to direct us in the gospel worship of the new testament and we find no command no evidence whatsoever to use musical instruments and to bring them in is to violate the authority and the will of christ in this well we're going to go to our midway break right now if anybody would like to join us with a question of your own our email address is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com and we do already have quite a number of people waiting to have their questions asked and answered and we will try to get to as many of you as possible but we do uh want our guest john price when we return from the break to continue some thoughts theologically and biblically on his position so uh i hope you're patient if you want to get in line uh behind the other listeners already waiting to have their questions asked our email address again is chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com and please give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the good old usa don't go away we'll be right back after these messages god willing hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am

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.com we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor iron sharpens iron radio is sponsored by harvey cedars a year -round bible conference and retreat center nestled on the jersey shore harvey cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400 for generations christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at harvey cedars each year thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about god's word an additional 9 000 come annually to harvey cedars as families couples singles men women pastors seniors and missionaries 90 miles from new york city 70 miles from philly and 95 miles from wilmington and easily accessible scores of notable christian groups frequently planned conferences at harvey cedars like the navigators intervarsity christian fellowship campus crusade and the alliance of confessing evangelicals find harvey cedars on facebook or at hcbible .org

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives welcome back this is chris arnzen if you just tuned us in our guest today for the full two hours with about an hour to go is john price pastor of grace baptist church of rochester new york and he's also the author of old light on new worship musical instruments and the worship of god a theological historical and psychological study this is part one of a three -part interview that we are discussing and today is going to be primarily focused on the theology of this subject the theological aspects uh before i return to john i have some important announcements to make in regard to special events coming up the gospel of the reformation the 500th anniversary celebration is being held at the word of church in farmingville long island friday september 29th and saturday september 30th at the word of truth church 10 55 portion road farmingville long island new york the keynote speaker is tony costa a dear friend of mine from toronto baptist seminary uh he is the professor of apologetics and islam there toronto baptist seminary and i hope that you could join me there i am intending to participate in this as well go to wot church .com

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wot church .com if you have an interest in joining me there and registering and wot stands for word of truth and that's church .com

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wot church .com we can also call them at 631 -806 -0614 631 -806 -0614 the very next day the first sunday of october october 1st hope reform baptist church in medford long island new york is going to also have dr tony costa from toronto baptist seminary speak at their worship service so that will be a sunday morning service at 11 and if you'd like to join them at this uh this uh continuation of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the protestant reformation go to hope reformed li .net

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for further details hope reformed li standing for long island .net you can also call hope reform baptist church at 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 following that in november from the 17th through the 18th the alliance of confessing evangelicals having the quaker town conference on reform theology on the theme for still our ancient foe a reference to satan from that classic reformation hymn by martin luther a mighty fortress the speakers at this conference include kent hughes peter jones tom nettles dennis cahill and scott oliphant the registration can be made at alliancenet .org

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alliancenet .org click on events and then click on quaker town conference on reform theology once again that's november 17th through the 18th it's going to be held at the grace bible fellowship church in quaker town pennsylvania and then in january from the 17th through the 20th the g3 conference returns to atlanta georgia g3 standing for grace gospel and glory the 17th will exclusively be a spanish speaking edition of the conference and the 18th through the 20th will exclusively be an english speaking edition of the conference featuring steve lawson vody baucom phil johnson keith getty hb charles jr tim challis josh bice james white tom askell anthony mathenia michael kruger david miller paul tripp todd freal derrick thomas and martha peace the theme is knowing god a biblical understanding of discipleship if you would like to join me at the g3 conference i plan to be there as well with an iron sharpens iron exhibitors booth go to g3 conference .com

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g3 conference .com please let any of these organizations running these events know that you heard about them from chris arnzen at iron sharpens iron radio and last but not least i have the most uncomfortable aspect of the program to perform i have to ask you for money the advertisers that that spend hard -earned money to keep this program afloat have urged me to make daily public appeals for more donations and advertising for years when i started this program i never made a single public appeal for a donation but the times are so urgent lately and the need so desperate if you want iron sharpens iron radio to remain on the air please go to iron sharpens iron radio .com

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and then click support and the advertising is open to anybody that has anything that you'd like to advertise as long as what you are promoting is compatible with the theological positions expressed on iron sharpens iron radio that does not mean you have to believe identically to chris harnson it just means that it can't be in major conflict in any way with the theology of iron sharpens iron radio and if you'd like to send me an email with your request to discuss advertising with me just send an email to chris arnson at gmail .com

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chris arnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line and i will be happy to discuss that with you we are back now to the discussion that we began a little over an hour ago with john price of grace baptist church of rochester new york and author of old light on new worship musical instruments and the worship of god a theological historical and psychological study and john if you could uh provide uh some more biblical evidence that compelled you to arrive at this position of strictly acapella worship before we take any of our listeners who are waiting uh take any questions from our listeners who are waiting yes uh thank you um we need to begin in the old testament and we are looking at the subject of the use of musical instruments in the house of god first in the tabernacle and then in the temple and the first instrument that is used or introduced into the worship of the tabernacle in the time of is found in numbers chapter 10 and in that passage uh god commands moses to make a silver trumpet he commands him to make two of them and they are to be made out of silver out of hammered silver he commands who is to use those trumpets is to be the priest and when they are to be uh used over there to be used in different occasions um for calling out the army of israel for moving the camp the camps of israel in their wilderness wanderings but also they're to be used over their burnt offerings and over the sacrifice of their peace offerings in their appointed feasts and so they are part of the worship in the time of the tabernacle now what god does here is he's being very specific about the instrument that is to be used it's to be the trumpet what it is to be made of and how it is to be made hammered silver who is to use it the levites are the only ones to use it and when it is to be used and this is significant because moses grew up in egypt in pharaoh's house and the egyptian the egyptian culture at that time used a wide variety of musical instruments um musical instruments were used in they were they had a central role in the in the worship of the egyptian gods they were used in national celebrations in egypt and as we read in acts chapter 7 verse 20 moses was educated in all the learning of the egyptians and he grew up in pharaoh's home so moses was well aware of all the musical instruments that were used in the culture of egypt at that time but when he came and built the tabernacle he knew that he could not bring any instrument into god's worship except by a clear divine divine command and that command came to him here in numbers chapter 10 where god commanded the use of these two trumpets now these trumpets continue to be the only instruments that were used in the worship of the tabernacle through the years of the wilderness wanderings until we come to the time of king david when david brings the ark up into jerusalem and and then it will and then also david um gives the direction to his son solomon for the construction of the temple and for the temple worship david is the one now who brings in other musical instruments to be used in the worship of the temple and this is to continue now throughout the centuries of the temple worship now when we read the narrative of david bringing in the instruments when he brought the ark into jerusalem and when he ordered the worship of the temple we we might wonder well why is david doing this um is he doing this because he's a skilled musician and this is his own personal desire um this is what he wants to do and so he simply views this as a matter of liberty and he brings in these instruments that's the question well the answer to that question is found in a passage in second chronicles chapter 29 and verses 25 through 27 and in this passage we are 300 years after david in the time of king hezekiah and the temple worship has been corrupted it needs to be reinstituted hezekiah is reinstituting the temple worship and he has to ask the question what do we do in regard to the use of musical instruments and he looks back to the time of david and we read in second chronicles 29 verse 25 he then stationed the levites in the house of the lord symbols with hearts and with wires according to the command of david and so he did this he brought in these musical instruments according to the command of david and then it reads and of gad the king seer and of nathan the prophet for the command was from the lord through his prophets in other words this explains to us why david brought the musical instruments into the temple worship because the command came to him from god's prophets and david brought them in under the authority of a clear divine command and then a second important thing we find here is that it was the levites who alone were given authority to use these instruments in god's house they were divinely set apart they were uh we could also assume they were divinely gifted for their roles anointed as priests and and enabled by god to fulfill their task but then the third thing that we also learn in this passage is that not only does david bring in the instruments by a divine command but also the specific instruments that are to be brought in are specified by god's command we read in verse 26 and the levites stood with the musical instruments of david and the priests with the so the trumpets from moses time continues and now we add to them the musical instruments of david and then we read again in verse 27 that when the burnt offering began the song to the lord also began with the trumpets accompanied by the musical instruments of david king of israel so here is hezekiah reinstituting temple worship he looks back 300 years to why david brought those instruments in it was a command that came from the lord through his prophets to david to bring them in and so that command continues and hezekiah restores the temple worship under that authority now what happens is that um uh every time the temple worship becomes corrupted and the men of the bible must reinstitute temple worship they always look back to this command of david the command that came from god through david to bring in the musical instruments now we find this for example um when solomon began instituted the temple worship for the first time in second chronicles chapter 8 in verse 14 he brings in the symbols the hearts of the liars with the trumpets and he brings in the levitical worship and it says he did so according to the ordinance or according to the command of his father david and then it reads again that this was done according to the daily rule for david the man of god had so commanded so solomon begins the temple worship dedicates the temple institutes its worship and he brings in the instruments according to the command of his father david and then the pattern continues at different points throughout the history of the nation of israel for example 170 years after david um jehoiada the priest must reform the worship and this is in second chronicles chapter 23 in verse 18 and he brings in the levitical priests into the house of the lord and the passage says whom david had assigned over the house of the lord to offer um the burnt offerings with rejoicing and singing according to the order of david in other words according to the direction or the command of david and then we have that event that we mentioned earlier 300 years after david in the time of king hezekiah we can move forward to another occasion of the reinstitution of temple worship in the time of king josiah and here we are 380 years after david josiah institutes reinstitutes temple worship and brings in the levitical priests with their instruments and we read it is done according to the writing of david king of israel and and then in this is in second chronicles 35 and verse 4 down in verse 15 we read and the singers the sons of asap were in their places according to the command of david and so the pattern continues again uh now we are the the nation of israel is sent into the babylonian captivity and after their return from captivity they build the second temple 550 years after david uh we read in ezra chapter 3 in verse 10 that's a rubber boat the prince and jeshua the priest instituted the worship in the second temple and they brought in the levites with their symbols to praise the lord according to the ordinance of david king of israel so they were looking back 350 years and the reason why they brought in the levitical priests with their instruments was according to the ordinance or the command of david we find the same thing 600 years after david in the reforms of nehemiah in nehemiah chapter 12 where we read of the levites in their worship and it was and it was being done according to the command of david the man of god in chapter 12 of nehemiah verses 35 and 36 we read of the priests with the trumpets and with the musical instruments of david the man of god and then again in verse 45 and 46 we read that it was done according to the command of david so we've we've established this pattern here where we had seven different occasions throughout the history of the old testament in the time of david in the time of solomon and then jehoiada 170 years later hezekiah 270 years later josiah 380 years later ezra 550 years later and nehemiah 600 years later all of these men when they were reinstituting the temple worship they always looked back for the reason to bring in musical instruments it was only according to the command of david which had come to him from the from the lord through the prophets and so david's command was god's command and the musical instruments were brought in only under that that command and not just uh musical instruments but the musical instruments were specified there were the trumpets from moses time and also the musical instruments of david and it's it's interesting to note that in nehemiah chapter 12 it is again specifically that the musical instruments of david the man of god that were brought into the temple this is 600 years after david this is after the babylonian captivity and the nation of israel had been in babylon and we read in daniel chapter 3 when nebuchadnezzar played his orchestra before his great golden idol image we read of the bagpipe we read of the trigon and other musical instruments and surely the people of israel having spent generations in captivity were exposed to a variety of other musical instruments in babylon and and influenced by them but when they came back and they built the second temple and they reinstituted god's worship they brought in the musical instruments of david and they did so according to the command of david so they recognized that the musical instruments were commanded by god through david but also the particular instruments so there was not liberty here to do whatever they pleased to bring in whatever they wanted into god's house they brought the instruments in only under divine authority so as we look at the old testament as a whole we can say that musical that the men the men of the bible have always viewed musical instruments in public worship in god's house always as under his authority there is not an example anywhere in the bible of men ever bringing a musical instrument into the house of the lord apart from a divine command there is never an example of anything like that ever happening in the entire bible and so the men of god never viewed this as a matter of indifference it was never something of liberty it was never something that they could do as they pleased in god's house they always view this issue of musical instruments and the specific instruments themselves as under the authority of god god regulated his worship even in regard to the specific musical instruments which were to be used so um now the the uh i think we should state that the old testament clearly shows us the use of musical instruments in god's house as being under his authority and if someone would claim that they are not no longer under his authority and that something has changed in in god's view and his control and his authority over musical instruments then i would say to them that they need to establish that they need to prove that from the scriptures and until they show the proof that that musical instruments are a matter of indifference or liberty and men can do as we please then we must leave them where god has placed them which is under his authority i think i should mention that we have other events in the old testament where instruments are used for example someone will probably wonder what about miriam and she uses the timbrel in exodus chapter 15 after the deliverance from egypt and we have other occasions in the life of the nation of israel where these instruments are being used and i think we should clarify that in these occasions we are talking about events that take place outside of the house of god we are talking about events that take place outside the worship of god in his house um and also these are unique and one -time events that take place for example miriam and the timbrel these are not given to us as continuing as commands or even examples of continuing and ongoing worship in god's house um they're only temporary in nature they are not the continuing state of public worship for the people of god and so they really have no direct bearing on the subject that we're addressing here which is the house of god and what we should bring into his worship um when we come to the new testament now what happens in the new testament is that the apostles christ and the apostles look back to the old testament they abolish the entire temple worship of the old testament in jerusalem the levitical priesthood the ceremonial worship the rituals of the temple worship the sacrificial system and the musical instruments the entire temple worship is abolished by christ and his apostles now the musical instruments were only commanded of the levitical priests in the old testament they were an intrinsic part of their priesthood they are no less an intrinsic part of their priesthood than the sacrificial system that was given to them as well the whole worship of the temple and all of its ceremonies is abolished by christ and his apostles and we must look to christ and the apostles for the worship of the new testament church now we can we can show that the old testament temple worship was abolished by different passages i'll just mention these quickly as quickly as possible the book of hebrews um one of its themes is the abolition of that worship uh hebrews chapter 7 and verse 12 when the priesthood is when the priesthood is changed of necessity there takes place a change of law also so when the levitical priesthood is abolished the laws of the worship of that priesthood are also abolished they are both together they both stand and they both fall together uh we find in hebrews 8 and verse 13 uh the apostle says that the the first um covenant is made obsolete and whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear and he's talking about the old the temple worship of the it is growing old it is ready to disappear in chapter nine of the book of hebrews and the end of verse 10 verses 8 through 10 actually he goes through different um elements of the temple worship and then at the end of verse 10 he calls them carnal ordinances which were imposed until the time of reformation and so those ordinances of the temple worship were only commanded until the time of reformation was to come which is the death of christ and the new testament uh worship of the gospel church uh another important passage in this regard is is jesus conversation with the that an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in jerusalem shall you worship the father he says nor in jerusalem which indicates jesus is aware the temple worship in jerusalem is soon to be abolished an hour is coming worship worship in truth so there is the abolition of the testament worship and a new worship which is going to be in spirit and in truth and right now we're going to uh take a break john we'll have you complete your thoughts when we return and then we'll have to take some of our listener questions and if anybody wants to uh jump online and have a question asked and answered now is the time to do it because we're running out of time our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com

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chrisarnson at gmail .com and as always please give us your first name city and state and country of residence if you live outside of the usa you may remain anonymous if it makes you feel more comfortable because because it's about a personal and private matter that you're asking but otherwise give us your first name at least city and state and country of don't go away we'll be right back after these messages chef exclusive catering is in south central pennsylvania chef exclusives goal is to provide a dining experience that is sure to please any palate chef damian white of chef exclusive is a graduate of the renowned johnson and wales university with a degree in culinary arts and applied science chef exclusive catering's event center is newly designed with elegance and style and is available for small office gatherings bridal showers engagement parties and rehearsal dinners critics and guests alike acknowledge chef exclusives commitment to exceeding even the highest expectations i know of their quality firsthand since chef exclusive catered by most recent iron sharpens iron radio pastor's luncheon for details call 717 -388 -3000 that's 717 -388 -3000 or visit chef exclusive .com

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hcbible .org call 609 -494 -5689 609 -494 -5689 harvey cedars where christ finds people and changes lives welcome back this is chris arnzen if you just tuned us in we've got about 25 minutes left with a discussion of a discussion with pastor john price of grace baptist church of rochester new york and we are discussing exclusive acapella worship defended this is part one of a three -part interview the second two dates that we have scheduled are october 10th and the 12th so we hope that you join us for those dates as well god willing and uh pastor price uh if you want to wrap up anything that you didn't finish saying before the break so that we can now take our listener questions because people have been waiting for quite a while pastor price hello i have no idea what happened to pastor price are you there pastor price well hopefully pastor price i'm here oh i am here okay um i'm sorry about that uh the only other passage well maybe two briefly passages that i would want to mention uh ephesians chapter 2 verse 14 and 15 where paul says um by abolishing in his flesh the enmity which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances in other words christ by his death he has abolished the the law of commandments the ordinances the ceremonial laws of the old testament temple worship and we could say the same thing um from first corinthians chapter 3 verses 10 and 11 that he's referring paul is referring to the old covenant and it's and it's worship and that worship um had glory but now it fades away and um and now there is the new testament the new gospel worship which remains and um so these passages in the new testament confirm that the temple worship has been abolished we look to christ and his apostles for the worship of the new testament and we find their commands for worship to be the reading and preaching of the word prayer the singing of psalms hymns and spiritual songs there is alms giving and there are the sacraments of the lord's supper and baptism so we look to them for the ordinances of the new testament church um all of this is confirmed by the fact that the apostles never reach back into the temple worship and try to bring any aspect of that worship into the new testament church okay well we have oh i'm sorry were you uh in the middle of saying something there i'm sorry go ahead i thought i might have cut you off i'm sorry uh i'm fine no i thought i cut you off i guess i didn't um we have joe from clifton new jersey who says dear pastor price thank you for sharing your convictions on the matter of instruments i am often grieved that in our modern day many churches implement music to appeal to the will desires and emotions of people rather than to pursue what most honors and obeys god so in this regard i appreciate that your primary goal is to be faithful to god and worship and to edify the church my question regards the hermeneutic by which you come to your conclusion about exclusion of instruments given that there is precedent in scripture to have instruments accompanying accompanying sinning singing accompanying singing how does your hermeneutic assure that the exclusion of instruments is not taking the regulative principle to an extreme that goes beyond scriptural principle can you please expound on your hermeneutic yes i guess because of the fact that your hermeneutic is basically largely is based largely on silence in the new testament not a clear prohibition there is going to be questions like that and especially because of the fact that the there is no detailed liturgy or order of worship in the god -breathed pages of the scriptures only the the bare minimum of things that you mentioned uh that we have in acts two and in and colossians three you know in regarding to the breaking of bread the fellowship the teaching the giving the singing and so on but if you could uh if you could answer joe's question sure i appreciate the question um i think that uh what we should say is that silence is the regulative principle and what i mean by that is that when god is silent then we must not act um for us to bring anything into god's worship any element or ordinance of worship we need god's command in order to bring it in if we have no command if god is silent then that means it is that is the expression of his will that he does not desire on that to be brought in now i um it this is a we're getting into an understand proper understanding of the um there are those who would say that um unless there's a prohibition what we need is a prohibition in order not to bring something in well then we would have uh we could bring in anything that we wanted unless we found a prohibition in the scripture and so the proper view of the regulative principle is that god's silence is the prohibition and we are to limit ourselves to what he has clearly commanded now i recognize that in the old testament we have singing and we have the use of instruments but these are two separate acts and they can both take place independently of one another both of them are commanded in the old testament scripture singing is commanded of the levites and the use of the musical instruments was commanded of the so they were both commanded and under god's authority in the old testament temple worship but when we come to the new testament the temple worship has been abolished by christ and his apostles and we find in the new testament that only singing is commanded now if christ wanted the use of musical instruments he could have very easily commanded them to be used in the new testament he does not he only commands singing so it is only singing with the voice that is the continuing command of christ in the new testament scripture in the new testament worship and we do not find the apostles ever reaching back into the temple worship and bringing any aspect of it forward into the new testament worship including the use of the musical instruments the worship of the new testament church is clearly a new worship the time of reformation has come the old has faded away it is obsolete and the new gospel worship of the new testament is what we should follow um so i would also i would also say that when we look at the as a whole we see in the old testament that the holy spirit was profuse in its mention of the various musical instruments that were to be used in the worship of god's house the holy spirit spoke abundantly in the old testament on many different occasions about those instruments when we come to the new testament we find the holy spirit in complete silence in regard to the use of musical instruments the issue is how do we interpret that silence and as i've explained the silence god's silence means we do not go there um why why did the holy spirit speak so abundantly of instruments in the old testament and yet he cannot speak clearly and abundantly to us in the new testament as well if he wants us to have the continuing use of instruments in the worship of the new testament church i would say that the the great distinction in what we see in this regard from the old the new testament confirms the fact that musical instruments have disappeared we have uh oh by the way joe you have won a free copy of the book that we are discussing uh written by our guest john price old light on new worship please give us your full mailing address in clifton new jersey so cumberland valley bible book service cvbbs .com

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can mail that out to you and we thank our friends at simpson publishing uh for providing us with these books that we are giving away uh we have chris in runnels iowa who says thanks for having this very respectful discussion on how the regulative principle affects our worship of god it has been very thought -provoking so far i am curious how your guest would respond to arguments against the decalog being binding on the new on the christian conscience since it is since it is in the old testament i ask this because it seems like someone could reject the 10 commandments for a similar reason saying that it particularly had to do with israel and not the church thank you well uh i'm assuming that you would answer that the not at least nine of the 10 commandments are specifically repeated in the new testament but but if you could i would i would argue that all 10 commandments because are repeated um in the new testament and in regard to the sabbath day i would say that jesus controversy with the pharisees um over the sabbath day uh he that that was the most common controversy that jesus had with the pharisees and and and so there we have the sabbath day established and confirmed by christ in the new testament so i would not agree that the fourth commandment is not mentioned i would say that it's mentioned more than more uh more by christ than any other yeah well my point was just that even to satisfy the uh most ardent new covenant theologian who only sees the decalog as something that was exclusively for the nation of israel even they believe that nine of the ten are in the new covenant right well let me let me answer the question um paul says in second timothy chapter 3 in verse 16 that all scripture is god -breathed and is profitable for our doctrine our correction reproof and training and righteousness all scripture is for us in the new testament he's referring to the old testament scripture primarily in that passage and so all the scripture is for our edification and our uh walk in righteousness our training in righteousness um unless there but there are those aspects of the old testament that are abolished and everything my understanding is that everything continues unless the apostles christian apostles specifically abolish something from the old testament scriptures and that's what they've done with the temple worship they have clearly looked back at the old testament and said that the ceremonial worship of the temple is gone but they don't do that with the decalog and we could go over many passages in the new testament that would indicate that the law of god still continues to be um the rule uh life for the christians so i think that would be a simple answer that's my simplest okay and by the way chris you've also won a free copy of old light on new worship so make sure that we have your full mailing address in runnels iowa so that's cvbbs .com

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carmeline valley bible book service can ship that out to you uh john in carlisle pennsylvania says sorry i missed the first part of the program and this may have already been answered but when the psalms tell us to praise him with the sound of a trumpet how is it wrong to do so in other words how could we sing a song that is commanding us to use a musical instrument well if we were to adopt that argument then we would have to bring we would have to do everything that the psalms speak of we would have to have the hyssop the altar the sackcloth the evening sacrifice the goats and bulls the cherubim the ark the new moon everything the sword that slays the nations everything that the psalms speak of we would have to have those things in our worship and so um that it's it's obvious that that would not be the case um and and i and i and the the psalms can clearly be sung without uh bringing all these things forward into the worship of the church and they can be sung um independently of that that of these particular practices that i've mentioned so i think we sing psalms and we are edified in the singing of the psalms but that does not necessitate that we bring forward these aspects into the church thank you john and carlisle you've also won a free copy of old light on new worship and since you're in carlisle pennsylvania just pick it up at cumberland bible book service on north hanover street right there in carlisle and tell them tell todd and patty jennings that you won the book on iron sharpens iron radio uh let's see here we have uh gordy in mechanicsburg pennsylvania who says i think this is a very important question how would you suggest bringing i'm sorry how would you suggest beginning dialogue on this subject within the local church that would be a very touchy thing to do obviously when a church may already not only use musical instruments they might have a a professional level band that would make broadway blush and here you are bringing in this suggestion to abolish the use of instrumental or musical instruments i should say if you could answer gordy's question right well i i i think i do address that in my exhortation to unity in the book um i would i would approach uh the pastors of the church privately um i would try to speak with them about this subject and and make sure that you yourself have some you know the proper knowledge to be able to speak to them or uh give them um what they need to read to be edified in regard to that um and i would encourage patience and uh a proper submission to the authority of the elders in the church um and and then beyond that uh it would have to really be determined what to do next if there's no movement there's no interest there's no change um any anything that would be done by an individual after that would have to be determined by the level of uh the use of musical instruments in the church you know i mean is it just a piano is it an entire rock and roll band and what is actually going on here um and and the particular person's conscience in dealing with that in dealing with that issue um i would always encourage someone not to be disruptive and not to um affect the unity of the church in this regard as he moves through this um as he as he makes this change well thank you a gordian mechanicsberg you've also won a free copy of old light on new worship and since mechanic spurg is only about 10 minutes away from cumberland valley bible book service why don't you just drive by there yourself and pick up your copy as well i've got compliments of simpson publishing and uh we have let's see cj in lindenhurst long island new york who asks do you think that removal of musical instruments from the corporate worship of god's people might also bring an end to a lot of the conflict and wars that people have over musical instruments and rhythms and melodies etc i think that's a very good point i i think that if if when a church follows uh this path and removes the musical instruments um that does that does a lot in terms of limiting what kinds of music and i'm speaking of um use of acapella singing of the voice can be used because now um the whole the whole use of music in the church shifts from entertainment oriented often to what the congregation is able to sing and when when we're dealing with um congregational singing the tunes and uh the type of music it should be simple and easily sung and so it does limit the variety of music that can be used and that is often a source of conflict and trouble among god's people so um an acapella uh singing church there's often a lot more peace because we we can't get ourselves involved we're not interested in all these other things and thank you cj from lindenhurst long island please make sure we have your full mailing address because you've also won a copy of old light on new worship we have arnie in perry county pennsylvania who asks this may sound like a silly and trivial question but i know of strictly acapella churches that actually argue with one another on whether or not we can clap our hands during worship what is your opinion well i i i've heard of that um i know that these kind of things can happen um in my opinion is i we don't have any problem with clapping of hands i would not encourage it myself um but uh these are these are problems even even in churches sometimes that do sing acapella um somebody will want to you know add something and uh the addition of these other things can be uh troublesome and divisive well arnie you've also won the last copy of old light on new worship thank you very much for your question and please make sure we have your full mailing address in perry county pennsylvania the last question that we have for the day is from murray in kinross scotland would you say that the use of musical instruments actually invalidates worship from god's point of view making it impossible for us to render worship in spirit and in truth to him if musical instruments are used or would you say that acceptable worship still exists but the musical instruments are merely an unwarranted addition i i would not say that the use of musical instruments invalidates the worship of god's people um i would say it is an unwarranted addition that should be removed and and of course as we've mentioned before there's um various degrees of the use of musical instruments and some are more grievous than others and um and that needs to be recognized as well well we're out of time and we're going to be able to uh fill in what we left out uh during our next additions of this same exact study uh on october 10th and october 12th god willing when we have john price back to examine the use of musical instruments in the new covenant worship and i want to make sure that our listeners know that you can get this book old light on new worship from simpson publishing company and their website is simpsonpublishing .com

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simpson that's s -i -m -p -s -o -n publishing .com and you could also get it at cvbbs .com

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cumberland valley bible book service cvbbs .com and i want to also make sure that uh the listeners have grace baptist church of rochester's uh contact information what is the best website for you um you can find us our website is well you can email me and you can get it later yes gbcrock .org