May 11, 2023 Show with Hexon Maldonado on “In the King’s Presence: How Christ’s Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate Worship”

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May 12, 2023

May 11, 2023 HEXON MALDONADO, founding pastor & Pastor for Preaching at Tapestry Community Church, Belton, Texas, who will address: “IN THE KING’s PRESENCE: HOW CHRIST’s ROYAL MAJESTY ENRICHES CORPORATE WORSHIP”

00:02: Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father
00:08: James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister
00:14: George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.
00:21: This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
00:31: Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
00:38: Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
00:50: It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
00:57: And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
01:10: 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.
01:20: This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 11th day of May, 2023.
01:30: I'm thrilled to have a first -time guest today speaking about a very important subject.
01:36: Perhaps, well, I'm assuming that all of you know that very recently, everyone on the planet
01:46: Earth, or at least the vast majority of people on the planet Earth who have television sets, were watching the coronation of Charles III, King of England, which took place on May 6th in Westminster Abbey.
02:03: Well, today we are going to be talking about a subject that is infinitely more important.
02:10: A king is going to be the highlight of our discussion who makes
02:16: Charles III pale into insignificance in comparison.
02:24: And this is the king of kings and the lord of lords we're going to be addressing today with our guest,
02:31: Hexen Maldonado. He is founding pastor and pastor for preaching at Tapestry Community Church in Belton, Texas.
02:39: And we are addressing his book, In the King's Presence, How Christ's Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate Worship.
02:47: It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, Pastor Hexen Maldonado.
02:56: Are you there, Hexen? Yes, thank you very much. Thought we got disconnected there.
03:02: Pleasure to be on. I appreciate the honor of being invited here to discuss my book and looking forward to the conversation.
03:10: I am as well. And I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away if they have questions about corporate worship.
03:18: Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
03:26: Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the
03:33: USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
03:39: Let's say you have developed a completely different ideology when it comes to corporate worship than you previously held, and it has put you at odds with the elders of your church, perhaps the majority of the congregation where you are a member, or perhaps you're even the pastor yourself.
04:01: And you have become at odds with your fellow elders, your worship leaders, your denomination over the issue of corporate worship.
04:10: We can understand that those things would compel you to remain anonymous if you have a question. But if you are just asking a general question about what the scriptures teach about corporate worship, about what our guest today,
04:24: Hexen Maldonado, has written in his book, In the King's Presence, if it's a general question, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.
04:33: Can you tell us, please, something about your church, which has a very interesting name, Tapestry Community Church of Belton, Texas?
04:43: Yeah. We are an independent, Reformed Baptist church. That's to say that we're not a part of any denomination.
04:53: We started the church about 10 years ago with four families in a living room, and it has just grown from there.
05:02: The name Tapestry really comes from the idea that if you look at a tapestry hanging on a wall, the front is the design, but when you look at the back, it's usually quite a mess.
05:19: I think that is just reflective of the church. We look at our own lives, and we are all a mess.
05:28: We come from different backgrounds in Christianity. Living out the gospel can be messy.
05:34: So we oftentimes see the back, and our lives often don't make any sense to us, but God sees the front, and He's weaving together a beautiful picture for His glory, and we just trust in that by faith.
05:52: So that's where the name comes from. We are a small congregation, but we are plugging along and strive to be as biblical as we can.
06:02: Great. And if anybody wants to find out more about Tapestry Community Church, the website is tapestrycommunitychurch .org.
06:14: Tapestrycommunitychurch .org. That's especially for those who may live in or near Belton, Texas, or you have family, friends, and loved one in Belton, Texas, or you're traveling through there and you want a good place to visit.
06:27: That's Tapestry Community Church of Belton, Texas. We have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.
06:35: Whenever we have a first -time guest on, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised, what kind of providential circumstances our
06:50: Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. And it's time now to hear a part of your story.
07:00: Well, I grew up in, well, part of my first half of my childhood in East Los Angeles, and then my teenage years in a suburb of East Los Angeles, not far outside of the city.
07:17: I grew up in a nominal Catholic home, a single -parent home. My mom raised three children in a rough neighborhood.
07:26: We went to Catholic church periodically, you know, during the most important holidays, but I wouldn't say regularly.
07:33: So that's the sort of background that I grew up in. I came to know the Lord at an early age.
07:40: My older brother, about five years older than I, came to know Christ through a high school ministry called
07:50: Campus Crusade for Christ International. Many people are familiar with that organization.
07:57: And he shared the gospel with me when I was 12 and so made a profession of faith.
08:03: It wasn't all smooth sailing after that. I got in a lot of trouble, sort of fell into a backslidden state for a while during my junior high and high school years, but recommitted my life to Christ at about age 18.
08:21: And then joined the Army, married my high school sweetheart. We met in ninth grade, started dating in 10th grade, got married right after high school, joined the
08:31: Army. Army brought me to Texas. And so I got out in Texas, got out of the
08:38: Army in Texas, stayed here, felt the calling of the Lord on my life while ministering in the church here in Texas, a nearby church.
08:50: And to make a long story short, from there, got out of the Army, went to college, went to seminary, and ended up starting our church about 10 years ago.
09:02: So that's sort of the Reader's Digest version. Well, praise God for it. And I'm just dying to find out, as a 12 -year -old convert to Christ out of a
09:13: Roman Catholic family, how did your parents and other family members react to this?
09:18: Did you let them know that you had come to a saving faith in Christ that was a different experience for you than the typical life and experience of those within Roman Catholicism?
09:36: I was also raised Roman Catholic. Came to faith in Christ at a much later age, in my mid -20s.
09:43: And my parents were actually thrilled that that happened to me, even though they were
09:49: Roman Catholic, because I was an out -of -control drunkard and had repented of that.
09:56: So they were pleased that they didn't have to worry about me dying every single day.
10:01: But tell us about what kind of reaction your own family gave to you as such a young boy.
10:10: Yeah, it was a pretty mild reaction. Friendly.
10:16: I think that's one of the benefits of maybe coming from a nominal Roman Catholic background.
10:23: My mom and most of our extended family, aunts and uncles, as my brother shared the gospel with the relatives, they didn't really see the difference.
10:35: They sort of viewed what we were doing as maybe just a different version of Roman Catholicism.
10:40: We're still reading the same Bible. We're still praying the same God. But they were resistant as you began to share the gospel with them and you began to talk about the differences between the church in Rome and Protestantism and certainly putting away the idols, no longer praying to statues or to saints.
11:05: They struggled with that. That was difficult for them to wrap their mind around. But in time, quite a few members of my family, my mom included, has made a profession of faith and has left the
11:21: Roman Catholic Church years ago and began attending various Baptist churches of non -denominational types.
11:29: So thankfully, it was a pretty easy transition. They weren't that resistant, just more curious than anything.
11:37: And it just took some time, and we are thankful that, again, many of my family members now have embraced the true gospel and are following Christ.
11:46: Praise God. I can rejoice with you that my very religious
11:52: Roman Catholic mother, very superstitious and idolatrous, although a very wonderful, humble, selfless individual, was steeped and enslaved to the idolatry and works righteousness of Roman Catholicism.
12:13: But thanks be to God, on her deathbed weeks before the
12:19: Lord called her home to himself, she made very clear and vivid and vibrant declarations of genuine biblical saving faith and trusting in the finished work of Christ alone.
12:32: She abandoned her idolatry of the saints and of statues and images, and it was just a gift -wrapped present from God that he gave me to witness that.
12:46: So I am thrilled to share that celebration with you about your own family members.
12:53: And one thing that I have to say is you said your Catholic family's reaction was somewhat mild in that you read the same
13:02: Bible. Well, one of the stark contrasts between born -again believers is usually that they're starting to read the
13:08: Bible for the first time and never did it as a Catholic. In fact, if anybody listening thinks
13:13: I'm being mean about Roman Catholicism, even most Roman Catholic apologists will admit—in fact,
13:22: I believe it was Patrick Madrid who at a debate once announced during his opening statements in a crowd that was a mixture of and evangelical
13:36: Protestants. He said, look to your left and look to your right, and if the person sitting next to you on either side has a
13:46: Bible open on their lap, I can guarantee you they are likely an evangelical Protestant.
13:52: That even came from a Roman Catholic apologist who was giving a chastisement of his own people that they did not typically—they're not known as a
14:05: Bible -reading people. That is true. That is true. I grew up—we never—we had a
14:11: Bible. It sat on, you know, the coffee table, and it was there to look at, and it wasn't really until I became a born -again believer that I started reading through it, and that was an amazing experience in and of itself.
14:27: Well, we are discussing, as I already announced, we are discussing your book, In the King's Presence, How Christ's Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate Worship.
14:38: I want to read a plug for this book that was written by someone that we have had as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary in California and also host of the
14:52: White Horse Inn. Dr. Horton says, If all our churches followed the wisdom here, the fruit would be enormous.
15:02: Quite a commendation. Tell us, first of all, because there are people who listen to this program who are sometimes new believers, and sometimes they're not even
15:16: Christians, and sometimes we use vocabulary on this program that is foreign to them, and so when someone hears the term corporate worship, they might be thinking, oh, they must be thinking of people who are worshiping at their place of business, a corporation or something.
15:34: But explain this very important aspect of church life, because this is where, and you may disagree with me, but this is where, in my experience, having especially been involved and employed in the
15:54: Christian radio industry going back to the late 1980s, most of which began in the early 1990s, 1991 for 15 years with an affiliate of Salem Media, the largest
16:10: Christian radio network in the world, I saw, as I became acquainted with and friendly with and even developing close friendships with people from a broad spectrum of evangelicalism, it seems that the heart of most of our infighting and wars and separation and even sometimes sadly nastiness and cruelty, the corporate worship is at the heart of many of those disputes and divisions.
16:43: But tell us about what a good definition of that would be. Yeah, corporate worship is distinguished from individual worship.
16:55: We can obviously worship God anywhere we want when we are by ourselves in our living room doing our morning
17:05: Bible reading as we pray and read. We are engaging in worship.
17:11: When I get together with my family, we do a family worship every morning. We are engaging in worship.
17:18: In fact, per Romans 12, all of life is to be worship. Everything that we do, so long as we do it for the glory of God, is worship.
17:30: We are to live lives of worship. But when I talk about corporate worship, I'm talking about the coming together of the body of Christ, corpus, the body.
17:40: And when believers come together and we come together to worship, so I'm specifically talking about what we do really on the
17:48: Lord's Day, the gathering of the saints on the Lord's Day for worship, and that's what
17:54: I mean by that. And I don't know whether or not you believe in the regulative principle of worship, as many, if not most,
18:03: Reformed Baptists do, but typically when someone is speaking of the regulative principle, they are almost exclusively speaking of corporate worship.
18:16: Not that they would say it's permissible for somebody in private worship to bow before an idol and pray to it, but there is more liberty involved in the kind of worship offered to God in somebody's home or at a casual gathering of fellowship for Christians.
18:37: You can incorporate different things that you would not want to incorporate into your corporate gathering on Sunday.
18:47: Am I making sense there? Yes, you are. And yeah, in fact, I mean, I do hold to the regulative principle.
18:54: That is what I believe is what we practice at our church, and I talk about that in Chapter 8.
19:00: In fact, I go through that, and I give a little brief discussion of the relative principle of worship and the regulative principle of worship.
19:12: And yeah, I think Scripture should govern how we worship in church. I think that is clear, and I offer multiple texts to support that.
19:24: I mean, I think the clearest one, going back to the Old Testament, is Deuteronomy Chapter 12. You look at verses 29 and following, just as the
19:31: Israelites are preparing to go into the Promised Land, there
19:37: Moses commands them, once they get into the Promised Land, don't look at the surrounding nations and don't try to borrow from them in terms of how you worship
19:47: God. He's very clear about that, that you don't want to add or subtract from anything that God has commanded with regards to worship.
19:56: And I do see that principle repeated as we go into the New Testament as well.
20:02: And you're correct in that a lot of division that takes place within evangelicalism surrounds corporate worship.
20:11: What are we doing on Sunday morning, and how should it be done?
20:19: And you can ask 10 different ministers, and you're likely to get 10 different answers to that question.
20:26: So what I try to do in my book is to take people back to Scripture, beginning with the
20:32: Old Testament and moving into the New, because they are not disconnected. The New Testament grows out of the
20:42: Old Testament, and I think so many Christians make the mistake of thinking that the
20:48: Old Testament is there just for historical reasons, but it really doesn't apply to 21st century evangelicalism, and I just think that that is just not true, and it's a wrong way of approaching the interpretation of Scripture.
21:07: And if you could, before we go to the first commercial break, what were the compelling factors that drove you to the point where you said to yourself,
21:18: I've got to write a book on corporate worship. From what I have come to learn, discover, embrace, fall in love with,
21:26: I really need to put this in print. There are, as you know, a multitude of books on worship.
21:35: I would guess that the likelihood is that most of them are heretical and garbage, but even within the
21:44: Reformed faith, there are many good books on worship. What was it that you had come to learn, embrace, and love and practice that you said,
21:55: You know, I love a lot of these other books that are available already, but I want to include my own voice in this discussion in print.
22:03: What was some of those compelling factors? Sure, that's a great question. In fact,
22:09: I was told multiple times by various publishers that there are already a plethora of books out there on worship.
22:20: Why one more? And there are some good books. Obviously, if you look at my end notes,
22:25: I did a lot of reading, read a lot of books on worship. I've got a few that are my favorites, but one of them being one written by Michael Horton.
22:37: I agree with them, don't think that there's anything, you know, that they fall short in any way.
22:45: But I think what compelled me is that, at least to my knowledge, I couldn't come across a book that really drove the point home from the angle that I'm taking.
22:59: And most books on worship, you know, we're arguing the same thing.
23:04: We end up at the same conclusion. I'll start there. We end up at the same conclusion, at least the books that I read that I agree with.
23:11: But they start at a slightly different starting place, and the starting place that most of them begin with is just the inerrancy of Scripture.
23:22: What does God command? Let's look at what Scripture talks about in terms of worship and how we're to worship
23:28: Him. And that's a great place to start. That's a great place to start. But what got me is it seemed to be very theologically driven and intellectually driven, which is fine and good.
23:46: I mean, we certainly—God gave us a mind to use and to work with, and we need to execute the text properly.
23:52: But a lot of what we see out in evangelicalism is driven by emotions. You know, what makes me feel good?
23:59: And a lot of the worship we see is emotion -driven, and I don't think that's entirely wrong.
24:08: I think it just depends on what is the object of our affections.
24:14: And I talk a lot about that in the book. I think where a lot of evangelical churches go wrong is that the object of their affection is
24:23: Christ, who is their pal, their buddy, their friend, their brother.
24:29: Which is all true. He is our brother. He is our friend, absolutely. But when you view
24:37: Christ primarily in those terms, it affects how you worship
24:42: Him. It affects how you understand the text. In other words, those become the rose -colored glasses through which you interpret
24:49: Scripture. And what I see in the Bible, beginning in the Old Testament and going into the
24:54: New, is that we ought to first and foremost view Christ as our King. Amen. In fact, this program,
25:02: Iron Trip and Zion Radio, was first launched on WNYG Radio in Babylon, Ohio, in 2005.
25:10: It was primarily a music station. And I'm not a bigot against all modern
25:17: Christian recording artists. But it just so happened that this station,
25:23: I think the majority of the music they played was something that made my skin crawl. And it fit within the category of Jesus is my boyfriend music.
25:36: You would hear women singing songs, and if you removed the name of Christ, the woman could have been singing to her boyfriend, her fiancé, her husband.
25:46: In fact, some of those very songs didn't even have the name of Christ at all anyway.
25:53: And some of them are being used in corporate worship now. Yes. And you can't help but wonder if these recording companies and the artists themselves, perhaps, were thinking,
26:06: I'm going to start off with creating worship music, and if I really want to go places in my career as a secular artist,
26:15: I could use these same songs. But I'm going to pick up with you where you left off, because we have to go to our first commercial break right now.
26:25: And once again, if you have a question for Hexen Maldonado on corporate worship, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.
26:34: Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Hexen Maldonado right after these messages from our sponsors.
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39:41: That's royaldiadem .com. Please remember to mention Chris Orensen of Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio. We're now back with Hexen Maldonado, founding pastor and pastor for preaching at Tapestry Community Church in Belton, Texas.
39:54: We are discussing his book, In the King's Presence, How Christ's Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate Worship.
40:00: If you could, go into where you actually start in the book by explaining and describing
40:11: God as king. Now, that might not be some kind of startling news, not only to Christians, but even anyone with a brain.
40:24: They would realize, well, if you believe that God exists, he should be viewed as your king.
40:32: He should be viewed as your sovereign, somebody over whom you are—who deserves all of your praise, honor, and worship, and so on.
40:44: Even an atheist can acknowledge that if somebody believes in God, and a
40:49: God that's the creator of all things, that he should be viewed as some kind of a king. And, of course, you have your leftist heretics who would say queen.
41:00: But they would view royalty as being involved, even beyond the comprehension of a human understanding of royalty.
41:09: But even though that may be the case, I'm sure you would agree that if you visit many churches across the
41:19: United States, and I'm assuming in other parts of the world, you would enter into a place where God is not really being treated as a king.
41:29: There seems to be more concerned about how the folks who are gathered there are enjoying themselves.
41:42: And perhaps even unconsciously, the effort is being made to entertain those that are there.
41:53: And it is not as if they are approaching the throne of a king, a royal deity, that should invoke nothing but awe, honor, reverence, etc.
42:12: If you could go into that concept of God as king. Yeah, I mean, you're right.
42:18: It shouldn't be startling to anyone to talk about God as king. But I started the book that way, not necessarily to teach something new, because as you said, most
42:30: Christians should readily acknowledge that, but really as a way of just trying to remind
42:35: Christians that God is still king. And we too easily forget that, conveniently, for different reasons.
42:47: I mean, I think part of the big problem, and I talk about this in the book, part of the big problem is that there is this desire to want to be seeker -friendly, seeker -sensitive, to want to try to attract people into the church with the hopes that they will get saved.
43:05: There's this evangelistic zeal to want to bring as many people into the church.
43:10: While on the one hand, I don't think the motives are wrong to want to get the gospel to as many people as possible, but I think the approach is definitely wrong.
43:25: And I think it all starts with not understanding and not keeping at the forefront of our mind who
43:31: God is. Who is God? God is king, and Christ is king because Jesus is
43:39: God. So I tried to make that connection between the Old and the New Testament. And then there's also just this forgetting that, well, if God is king and Christ is king, then what is actually happening in corporate worship?
43:53: And so I tried to really make that clear in the first half of the book, drawing the connection between Old Testament worship and New Testament worship.
44:03: The temple in the Old Testament was clearly viewed as the throne room of Israel's king.
44:10: God was their king. The tabernacle, the temple, was his throne room.
44:16: The Ark of the Covenant was his very throne. He would speak to the people from above the mercy seat.
44:22: We see that talked about in places like Exodus chapter 25, that that was the throne of God.
44:30: And so the trouble is that when we get into the New Testament, I think Christians tend to think that all of that just goes away.
44:38: The temple was destroyed in 70 AD, so we no longer have a temple. And God was the king of his people in the
44:46: Old Testament, Israel, but not anymore. And they may not articulate that, but that is the way they do worship.
44:57: And so what I tried to remind the readers of is that God is still king.
45:02: And I really – I forcefully tried to drive home that point because if God is king, which he is, and we recognize that, then we have to ask the question, does this king care about how we worship him?
45:16: Does he care about how we approach him? Does he care about what we do in his throne room?
45:23: And I think I make the argument pretty clearly that he does care. The king cares how we approach him and what we do in his throne room, and the corporate gathering of the church becomes the throne room of God.
45:38: And so that's what I try to drive home in the first opening chapters of the book. And you also get into the issue of approaching that king who is
45:50: God. Tell us about the unique way in which Christians should be doing that and avoiding the – on the one hand, the casual atmosphere of walking into a worship service as if you are walking into a comedy club or walking into an
46:18: Elks Lodge meeting or walking into just some very casual gathering of people, which actually there are
46:29: Christians who think the more casual the mindset and appearance of a worship service, the better.
46:37: They actually think that that's a demonstration or an example of showing greater love to one another and making visitors feel more welcomed and warm and loved.
46:49: But tell us – oh, and on the other hand, there is an extreme opposite to that, the atmosphere of superstition and religiosity in a bad way, religiosity that is more robotic and not really a sign of an outpouring of love.
47:16: Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean I think you demonstrate your love for someone, for anyone by rendering to them the respect and the reverence that they do, that they are due.
47:29: I mean I think we expect that of our children if our children really love their parents, and they're going to render to them the reverence and the respect that they are deserving of as being parents.
47:39: And so that's why I wanted to start there because it's – when we enter into the corporate worship, when we enter into the throne room of our king, if our perspective and our theological understanding is correct in understanding who
48:00: God is, who Christ is, and if the corporate gathering of the saints is – becomes the very throne room of our king, that in and of itself should resonate.
48:09: That should revolutionize not only what we do in worship but how we enter into corporate worship, and it should drive us to scripture to want to know what does this king expect of us, and not just in the order of worship, not just in terms of the liturgy, but just whether or not – should it be more casual?
48:36: Should it be more formal? What are we talking about here? And I think it's just perfect timing that this past Saturday, and you mentioned it in the introduction, we witnessed the coronation ceremony of King Charles III.
48:55: And I watched it, and we witnessed all of the pomp and ceremony, and everybody is of course dressed to the hilt as they're walking in.
49:09: And you think about that, and I'm quite certain that the invitations that were sent out likely did not tell people what to wear.
49:21: And somehow my invitation got lost in the mail somewhere. They simply recognize the significance of the event.
49:33: They recognize – and then even in terms of – obviously as you watched it, it was pretty clear that things had been rehearsed.
49:43: There was a certain order. Everybody knew their roles. Everyone wanted it to go off without a hitch.
49:51: What was the big deal? I mean it wasn't as if someone stepped in the wrong place or read the wrong line.
49:59: King Charles is going to throw them in prison or lop their head off. They all knew that. Everybody is driven by wanting to do their best, by wanting to present their best, because they recognize the significance of the event.
50:17: And I think that has been – now, I want to be careful here, and I'm certainly not advocating that we should require that everybody wear a suit and tie when they come to church, and if they're not wearing one, we're not going to let them in.
50:29: I mean that certainly cannot be the case. The church always – must always be welcoming to people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, social and economic backgrounds.
50:44: James is very clear on that, that we don't show favoritism to one person who's dressed nice over someone that isn't.
50:51: Yeah, there's a difference between not treating a wealthy person who's dressed to the nines in a superior way to a poor person.
51:00: But you may be a physician or a lawyer who crosses the line in the casual way he dresses when he attends church, not that we necessarily are going to have a dress code, as you said.
51:14: But there are people who – I can remember seeing people showing up at church barefoot with the jogging pants on.
51:24: I mean it's kind of bizarre, but anyway. Yeah, and so I just want to be careful to not give the wrong impression about my own book.
51:33: The book is not about how people should dress in church. But what I try to make clear is that how people behave in church – and I talk about other things.
51:44: I talk about – I use an illustration of a pastor who once preached his entire sermon while jumping on a trampoline.
51:52: By the way, can you pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to our midway break. Yes. I can't forget trampolines, so we will pick up right there.
52:01: If anybody has a question, send it to Chris Orensen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.
52:09: Please be patient. This is the longer than normal break in the middle of the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1
52:15: FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida.
52:25: With their public service announcements and other local things they air while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.
52:32: So please use this time to write down questions for Hexen and also write down the contact information for as many of our advertisers as possible so that you can more frequently and successfully contact them.
52:45: And keep in mind, we cannot exist without the financial support of our advertisers, folks. So try to patronize them as frequently as you can.
52:54: When you can't patronize them, at least say thank you for sponsoring Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We'll be right back.
53:00: Don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
53:16: I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the
53:24: G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd.
53:30: On a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
53:37: I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.
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54:12: Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the
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01:08:47: Mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now going to be returning momentarily to my discussion with Hexen Maldonado, pastor of Tapestry Community Church in Belton, Texas, author of In the
01:08:59: King's Presence, How Christ's Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate Worship. But before we do that, we just have a couple of announcements to make.
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01:12:01: Christ -honoring church like Tapestry Community Church of Belton, Texas, no matter where you live on the planet
01:12:07: Earth, we have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience in all parts of the planet
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01:12:21: Earth you live. So if you are without a church home that's biblically solid, send me an e -mail to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com
01:12:27: and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the e -mail address where you can send in a question to our guest,
01:12:33: Hexen Maldonado, on his book In the King's Presence. That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.
01:12:40: Before the midway break, Hexen, I can vividly remember you describing a pastor jumping up and down on a trampoline while presenting a so -called sermon, if you could pick up where you left off.
01:12:54: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was making the point that, you know, in the book, when we talk about just the low casual approach to worship in general, you know, jumping on a trampoline while preaching a sermon, or I share one illustration in my book about a pastor who drove his
01:13:17: Harley Davidson motorcycle onto the stage in order to make some illustration for his sermon.
01:13:22: It was just all of these antics, you know, blowing confetti out of the out of the vents during worship, or even just the casual dress.
01:13:33: You know, the point that I think I really want to emphasize is that all of these things are really just symptoms of a deeper issue.
01:13:42: And that's really the point that I try to get to in my book. They're just they're symptoms of a deeper issue.
01:13:47: And the symptom is not recognizing Christ as king right now.
01:13:54: He is our king and not recognizing that when we enter into corporate worship, we enter into the throne room of our king.
01:14:03: And we have an audience with him to hear from him. And if we really believe that that is a reality, which it is,
01:14:11: I try to make the argument. I think I make the argument quite strongly from Scripture, since that is the reality of what we do in corporate worship.
01:14:18: That ought to impact the way we approach corporate worship in everything that we do.
01:14:25: And so that is really the driving point of my book. And it's something that I did not see in a lot of other books on worship.
01:14:33: And again, just the coronation ceremony of King Charles III this past Saturday just sort of drove that home for me.
01:14:42: This is a mere mortal who is not even a sovereign monarch of a nation.
01:14:49: He's a mere mortal. He's just a man. And, you know, the extreme reverence with which he was approached and the whole event was approached.
01:15:02: My goodness, don't we deserve to give our God and king even greater reverence and honor when we enter into his presence on the
01:15:13: Lord's Day? We have Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who has a question.
01:15:19: Susan Margaret says, Do you think one of the reasons why evangelicals convert or return to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy is because they have found the modern evangelical approach to worship very shallow, irreverent, and lacking any kind of sense of awe and majesty?
01:15:44: That's an excellent question, and I think that she has something there with that question.
01:15:51: One thing that I don't know what Roman Catholic worship is like on the average
01:15:57: Sunday. Today, I was raised Roman Catholic, but it's been many years since I have been in an ordinary worship service as opposed to a wedding or funeral in a
01:16:09: Roman Catholic church. But Roman Catholic churches are not immune to this shallowness, because even in the late 60s and early 70s, as I was a
01:16:22: Roman Catholic student at St. Martin of Tours in Amityville, Long Island, and a member of the
01:16:29: St. Martin of Tours parish, they were singing Beatles music in the worship service.
01:16:36: Let It Be was one of the secular songs by the
01:16:42: Beatles that they incorporated into a worship service just because of the fact of the line,
01:16:49: In those times of darkness, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom. And I'm sure that there were many
01:16:57: Roman Catholics of a more conservative bent that were horrified by that. But do you think that Susan Margaret is making a point here?
01:17:06: I think that she might be right on the money myself. I do think she's right.
01:17:11: I think she's making a point. And I actually talk about that, I think, in the introduction to my book. I cite some interesting statistics.
01:17:18: I don't think it's coincidental that right at the same time that the seeker -friendly, seeker -sensitive movement was beginning in the mid -1970s is about the time that church attendance started to really plummet nationwide.
01:17:32: Now we've reached a point where less than 50 percent of Americans attend church.
01:17:40: And there does seem to be sort of a – I hate to call it a mass exodus, but there seems to be a movement of Christians moving toward the higher liturgical churches.
01:17:54: And I think part of that is because – and I say this in the book – that if the world looks inside the church and what they see inside the church is not anything different from what they see outside of the church, then what's the point?
01:18:07: When we treat the church corporate worship as being common or mundane or ordinary, you're not giving anyone any kind of incentive to get out of bed and go to church.
01:18:21: You can go to the lake and do the same thing. You can sit in a bass boat and sing worship songs and read your
01:18:27: Bible, and I know that there are people who would think you're having a worship service if you're doing that.
01:18:34: And so I do think that there are people who are hungry for the majesty of God's presence, particularly in this world that seems to be unraveling at the seams.
01:18:49: People are looking for the majesty of something that is beyond this world, and too many churches just aren't offering that.
01:18:57: They're offering what the world offers. Excellent. Susan Margaret, please make sure we have your mailing address because you have just won a free copy of In the
01:19:08: King's Presence, How Christ's Royal Majesty Enriches Corporate, worshipped by our guest
01:19:13: Hexen Maldonado. And CVVBS .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, will ship that out to you if you give us your mailing address.
01:19:25: Very excellent points you made there. And I just want to give a caveat that I am not personally offended or uncomfortable visiting a church that has a high liturgy as long as that liturgy is not idolatrous and incorporating things foreign to the scriptures into that high liturgy.
01:19:52: Every church is liturgical. It just means order of worship. But there are some that go way too dangerously close to mimicking
01:20:03: Roman Catholic high liturgy. And I know that I'll upset some of my
01:20:09: Anglican friends, but there are even theologically reformed
01:20:15: Anglicans who are thoroughly Protestant in their soteriology who incorporate things like incense and other things into their worship.
01:20:23: And that grieves me deeply, to be perfectly honest. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that, the incense and things like that?
01:20:32: Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, it's not biblical. It's Old Testament, but you have to be specific in obeying
01:20:41: God's exact design, as Nadab and Abihu will teach us clearly.
01:20:49: They thought that, hey, there's nothing wrong with being a little innovative with the kind of incense they offered, and they burst into flame by God's judgment.
01:20:57: But go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, you're correct. I mean, we find it in the Old Testament, but obviously worship is somewhat different in the
01:21:07: New Testament. What is the same—and this is what I want to be clear about—what is the same from Old to New is that God cares about how he's worshiped.
01:21:17: God cares about how he is approached. And so when we look into the
01:21:22: New Testament, we see the elements of worship that are prescribed in the
01:21:28: New Testament in terms of what we are to do. And not one of those is the swinging of incense.
01:21:35: That is an Old Testament prescription. We don't see that in the New Testament. And so, yeah, it would grieve me to see that as well.
01:21:43: I certainly don't think it's the unpardonable sin, but it is something that goes beyond that which
01:21:50: God commands. Amen. By the way, since Susan Margaret brought up Eastern Orthodoxy, I want to give a quick plug to my guest tomorrow.
01:22:02: I am going to be interviewing Joshua Schuping, who is a former
01:22:08: Eastern Orthodox priest who is now the pastor of a theologically -reformed evangelical congregation.
01:22:17: And we'll be discussing his book, Disillusioned, Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church.
01:22:24: So please, if you know folks who are dabbling with the idea of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, perhaps they already have, or perhaps they were always
01:22:34: Eastern Orthodox, or even Roman Catholic, I would urge you to tell them, please listen to Iron Trip and Zion Radio tomorrow.
01:22:42: That's Friday, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern, to hear my, no doubt, fascinating interview with Joshua Schuping.
01:22:50: This will be my first conversation with him on the air, and I am really looking forward to it. Let's see here.
01:22:57: We have another listener. We have an anonymous listener who says,
01:23:09: I am in the middle of a divide between close friends who, on one hand, are a part of what is known as New Covenant theology, and, on the other side, those who are confessionally -reformed
01:23:24: Baptists who are covenantal in their theology. The disagreement lies, in part, in the way that we describe what is occurring in a worship service and where we are when we are doing so.
01:23:38: For instance, my New Covenant friends will rebuke me for using the phrase sanctuary when
01:23:45: I am describing the place in the church where we are gathered to worship God.
01:23:50: Is that an appropriate rebuke, or is the
01:23:55: Christian Church completely free to use such a term for a New Covenant worship place?
01:24:04: I think we are free to use that term for a New Covenant worship place.
01:24:12: The word itself simply means that which is holy. It's related to the word sanctification, to sanctify.
01:24:21: It is a holy ground. It is a holy place. Even when you talk about that, what does the word holy mean?
01:24:28: It means that which is set apart to be devoted to God, and that's what we're doing in corporate worship.
01:24:36: Whether we're meeting in a gymnasium or whether we're meeting in an actual church building, that moment, that place, that time is a place that is set apart as being devoted to God.
01:24:51: So it's holy in that sense. It is a sanctuary. My experience has been that a lot of times
01:25:00: Christians can get hung up on these words because they sort of remind them of Roman Catholicism.
01:25:07: I just think we shouldn't allow the Roman Catholic Church to hijack some really great terms.
01:25:16: I get that sometimes as well when I refer to the Lord's Supper as the sacrament. In our church,
01:25:23: I've had some people say, why do you call it a sacrament that sounds so Roman Catholic? Well, because that is what it is.
01:25:31: It is holy. These are the holy elements. I certainly don't agree that they infuse righteousness into us in any sense.
01:25:39: They are a means of grace, but they certainly don't infuse righteousness into their participants. And it's also heretical to view them as a propitiatory sacrifice or as part of a propitiatory sacrifice.
01:25:53: Absolutely. Absolutely. But I don't see—I think those are minor differences.
01:25:59: I think they're bigger fish to fry. Well, actually, that last questioner involves something that another listener has asked.
01:26:11: Before I ask that listener's question, let me tell our anonymous listener, please give me your full name and your mailing address off the air, of course, in an email, so that you can receive a free copy of In the
01:26:26: King's Presence by our guest Hexen Maldonado. And CVBBS .com,
01:26:32: Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, will ship that out to you at no charge to you or to Iron Trip and Zion Radio. The other listener that we have,
01:26:42: Bobby in Hartsdale, New York. Bobby says,
01:26:47: You mentioned earlier in the program about all of life being worship, if I'm not mistaken.
01:26:54: Don't you think some Christians abuse that to oppose such things as the regulative principle that would give them the freedom to incorporate anything that gives them joy within reason, unless it is strictly forbidden in the
01:27:11: Bible, but something that is innocuous that they can include in a worship service that is not prescribed in the
01:27:21: New Testament, such as waving of flags, dancing, and other things? No, I mean,
01:27:29: I think—I mean, I know Christians can't take that too far from Romans 12, that all that we do is worship.
01:27:35: I think we have to understand that what it means to worship God is to relate to God, to interact with God in a way that honors
01:27:48: Him, that gives Him the reverence and the glory and the praise that He is deserving of.
01:27:54: And the primary way in which we do that is by living lives of obedience. And so when
01:27:59: I talk about all of life is to be worshipped, it means that when I am loving my wife as Christ loves the church, in line of Ephesians 5, 25 and following,
01:28:10: I am worshipping God. I'm giving God the reverence and the honor that He is due by striving to be obedient to His commands.
01:28:20: When I try to keep—when
01:28:25: I don't steal, when I don't lie, when I'm not dishonest, I am worshipping
01:28:31: God by my behavior in the fact that I am honoring and reverencing God by doing what
01:28:38: He commands. So when we talk about corporate worship, then, the way in which we worship
01:28:44: God rightly and we give Him the honor and the reverence and the glory and the praise that He is deserving of is by doing in corporate worship those things which
01:28:54: God commands. It's not honoring to God to do what He doesn't command simply because our heart is in the right place.
01:29:02: That's the problem with Nadab and Abihu. I mean, when you look at Leviticus chapter 10, that was a problem that they got into.
01:29:09: Because the bottom line is, when you read the text, we don't really know why they were bringing unauthorized incense to God.
01:29:15: The text doesn't tell us. It may be that they were trying to honor God. They were trying to worship
01:29:20: Him. They were trying to do something— It seems that way. Just like when Uzzah tried to steady the ark. Another great example, right?
01:29:27: 2 Samuel chapter 6. You would assume that there was nothing sinful about his intentions.
01:29:34: Right. But I think—I don't know who said it, but the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.
01:29:41: That's exactly right. I mean, he did something that anybody would possibly do if they had great reverence for that ark of the covenant.
01:29:52: And yet, God had commanded him, don't touch it. So he thought he was smarter than God in that moment, even though it was likely a from -the -gut, instantaneous, split -decision -without -thinking kind of a thing.
01:30:07: But it still violated God's command. It did. It did. That's absolutely right. And I think those are the two lessons that we get from Uzzah and Nadab and Abihu, is that for God, it doesn't matter if your heart's in the right place.
01:30:20: If you're worshiping in a way—worshiping him in a way that he does not desire, then it is displeasing to God.
01:30:29: And that holds true even in the New Testament, and we tend to forget that.
01:30:35: And I think that is an enormous problem in evangelicalism today. Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, please give us your full mailing address because you have also won a free copy of In the
01:30:47: King's Presence by Hexen Maldonado. Our topic of discussion today in CVBBS .com,
01:30:53: Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will ship that out to you.
01:31:00: Speaking of Anglicans, I have many Anglican friends that are biblically faithful, theologically reformed even, and who agree with me on more things than over which we disagree.
01:31:17: But one of the things that gets under my skin, if you will, is when the clergy of Anglicanism refers to themselves as priests.
01:31:31: And they will often claim, oh, that's just a shortened version, a nickname, an abbreviation for presbyters.
01:31:39: And it's not. It's not. A priest is a very unique thing.
01:31:46: And Roman Catholicism and Anglo -Catholicism are really treading into heretical waters when they adopt a notion of the priesthood that is unbiblical.
01:32:01: But there is a biblical understanding of it when it is rightly called, as the
01:32:06: Bible calls it, the priesthood of believers. So tell us about the role of priests. Yeah, that references in 1
01:32:14: Peter 2, 9, where it talks about we are a royal priesthood. And so what you see, again, it's important to make the connection that in the
01:32:25: Old Testament there are priests, and everybody knows that. That's not new to any Christian. Their primary role in the
01:32:32: Old Testament was to stand in the gap, so to speak, between the people of God, those – really the world, because Israel was to be a light to the world.
01:32:43: So it's not just the people of God, but they were to stand in the gap between the world and God. And they ministered to God's people.
01:32:52: They were the ones that directed proper worship within the tabernacle. They took care of the temple.
01:32:57: When we come into the New Testament, people tend to think, well, we don't have any priests anymore.
01:33:03: But we do, and in fact we are all priests of God. All believers are priests of God, and our role remains the same.
01:33:12: Our role remains the same in that we stand in the gap between the world and God, so to speak.
01:33:17: We work within the temple, the tabernacle, which is the dwelling place of God, which is the gathering of the saints on the
01:33:26: Lord's Day for corporate worship. We engage in acts of worship just as they did in the Old Testament. And so while some things have changed, obviously in the
01:33:35: Old Testament the priests had to come from the tribe of Levi. Specifically, they were descendants of Aaron. We get into the
01:33:41: New Testament, and in a physical sense that has changed, but not in a theological sense because Christ is our high priest, and we are all brothers and sisters of Christ.
01:33:54: We are all children of God, and so we are all priests of God. And so I think that's really important to understand, so that we are all priests, and we all still function in that priestly role throughout our lives, throughout the week, but in particular on the
01:34:13: Lord's Day. Yeah, and a distinction also in the very nature of the term, which is revealed in the very nature of the term, the priesthood of all believers, is that a
01:34:26: Bible -believing Christian does not believe in sacerdotalism. We do not believe that there is an elite group of Christians who have the sole ability to offer and bestow salvation and forgiveness of sins and so on to the lowly laypeople.
01:34:54: Because of the fact that, very inherent in the term, the priesthood of all believers, there is no elite class of Christians.
01:35:02: There are different roles in the body of Christ. Elders have a different role than deacons, and elders and deacons have a different role than a
01:35:11: Christian in the church that is not an office bearer. But at the same time, we are all equal in the sight of God, and there is no such elite class with special powers and abilities that your average
01:35:22: Christian does not possess. Yeah. Yep, that's correct. Correct. And I forget if I told
01:35:30: Bobby in Westchester County, Hartsdale, New York, that he has won a free copy of the book.
01:35:41: Forgive me if I didn't say that already. Let's go into your chapter about King Jesus.
01:35:50: We've already discussed God as king and approaching him, and Jesus is
01:35:56: God, of course, but he is a unique person of the Triune Godhead.
01:36:02: Even though all three members of the Trinity are co -equal and co -eternal, there are differences between them in how they have functioned and operated.
01:36:15: Always in agreement, they're not at odds with each other, but the father did not die on the cross, the father did not raise from the dead, etc.
01:36:26: So, if you could, tell us about the unique concept of Jesus as king. Yeah, Jesus, you know, in the
01:36:35: Old Testament, it talks about, you know, God as king. But that clear distinction doesn't become crystal clear until we get into the
01:36:45: New Testament, the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. And it becomes clear that, as you said, they do have different roles.
01:36:54: All three are God, all three are equally God, one God in three persons. But what we see is that the father is the one who lays out the plan of redemption.
01:37:04: The son is the one who carries out the plan of redemption, living the life of obedience for our righteousness, and then, of course, dying on the cross for sin, being raised from the dead.
01:37:14: And the Holy Spirit applies the work of redemption to the church and to the believer.
01:37:20: But within their roles, Christ is the one who is given that title. Of the three,
01:37:26: Christ is the one who is given that title as king of the church, and we see that in various places.
01:37:33: I mean, you talk about Colossians 113, where it says that when we are saved, we are transferred out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his son, the kingdom of his son.
01:37:46: So the kingdom belongs to the son. The implication is that he is the king.
01:37:51: You look at Revelation chapter 19, and it is Christ who is returning at the head of an army, and on his right thigh is written the king of kings and the lord of lords.
01:38:05: And so we see this just throughout the New Testament, that Christ is the king of the church.
01:38:12: God the Father has given him that title, and we know also from Ephesians 1, for example, toward the end,
01:38:20: I think it's verse 22, that God has placed all things. God the Father has placed all things under the feet of Christ, who is king.
01:38:30: So he has that role, and that, again, because Christ is the one who fulfills the three offices of prophet, priest, and king.
01:38:37: And what we see in the Old Testament, those three roles, which are never held by any one person.
01:38:44: The most you have is you have people who will hold two of those offices. But it's not until we come to the
01:38:49: New Testament that we see that Christ upholds all three offices of prophet, priest, and king.
01:38:56: Well, we are going to our final commercial break right now. If you have a question of your own, please submit it as quickly as possible because we are rapidly running out of time.
01:39:08: Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.
01:39:16: Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away. We'll be right back. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
01:39:38: I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the
01:39:46: G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd.
01:39:52: On a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
01:39:59: I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.
01:40:12: And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.
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01:40:25: G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 % discount.
01:40:34: Chris Arnson and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the
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01:41:08: Hey everybody, this is Pete Hegsteth, New York Times bestselling author and Fox &
01:41:14: Friends Weekend co -host. And I'm so excited because I'll be coming to Our Savior New American School in Center Reach, New York on Saturday, May 20th for their annual evening banquet.
01:41:24: Now by coming to this banquet, you're going to gain insight into how American education has lost its way.
01:41:30: We know it has. And how the rediscovery of classical Christian schools has provided families with a healthy alternative that is rooted in Christ, wisdom, virtue, and the classics.
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01:49:27: Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.
01:49:38: And finally, if you're looking to worship in a Reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.
01:49:48: Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Iovineo and thanks for listening. If you love
01:49:57: Iron Sharpens Iron radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.
01:50:05: One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Arnzen is doing is
01:50:10: Daniel P. Patafuoco, serious injury lawyer and Christian apologist.
01:50:16: Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?
01:50:22: To foster belief in the credibility of scripture as the written word of God. They go to various churches, schools, and institutions to publicly display a rare collection of biblical texts along with a fascinating presentation by Mr.
01:50:37: Patafuoco demonstrating the reliability of scripture. To advance the cause of the gospel, they created a beautiful, perfect facsimile of the genealogy of Jesus Christ from the original engravings contained in a first edition 1611
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01:51:20: Originals of this work are in museums and nobody has ever made it accessible to the public in a large book form before.
01:51:28: You can have your own copy of this 44 -page genealogy book for a donation of $35 or more.
01:51:36: Visit historicalbiblesociety .org. That's historicalbiblesociety .org.
01:51:44: Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing 6th grade.
01:51:57: Do you know what they all have in common? They all require training, assessments, and certifications. But do you know what requires no training at all?
01:52:05: Becoming a parent. My name is A .M. Brewster. I'm the president of Truth Love Parent and host of its award -winning podcast.
01:52:13: I've been a biblical family counselor since the early 2000s. And what I've discovered is that the majority of Christian parents have never been biblically equipped to do the work of the ministry in their homes.
01:52:23: That's why Truth Love Parent exists. We serve God by equipping dads and moms to be the ambassador parents
01:52:29: God called and created them to be. We produce free parenting resources, train church leaders, and offer biblical counseling so that the next generation of dads and moms can use the scriptures to parent their children for life and godliness.
01:52:41: Please visit us at truthloveparent .com. As host of Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.
01:53:03: A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey, pastored by Alan Dunn.
01:53:13: Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.
01:53:21: They believe churches need to turn to the Bible to discover what to include in worship and how to worship
01:53:27: God in spirit and truth. Grace Covenant Baptist Church endeavors to maintain a
01:53:33: God -centered focus. Reading, preaching, and hearing the Word of God, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, baptism, and communion are the scriptural elements of their corporate worship, performed with faith, joy, and sobriety.
01:53:47: Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbcnj .squarespace
01:53:56: .com. That's gcbcnj .squarespace .com.
01:54:03: Or call them at 908 -996 -7654. That's 908 -996 -7654.
01:54:13: Tell Pastor Dunn that you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And write down the new website for Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey.
01:54:25: It's gcbc -nj .org. gcbc -nj .org.
01:54:35: So disregard the previously read website in that commercial.
01:54:40: That is no longer functioning, and the new website is gcbc -nj .org.
01:54:46: We thank Pastor Alan Dunn, Deacon Frank Sabilla, and the entire congregation of Grace Covenant Baptist Church of Flemington, New Jersey for renewing their advertising contract on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.
01:54:59: Well, as we conclude, brother, we just have a couple of minutes to talk about throne room decorum, if you would say as much as you can squeeze in and time allotted to us.
01:55:14: Yeah, throne room decorum. That's where I talk about what does God require of us to do in worship.
01:55:23: And there are essentially six basic elements that Scripture commands.
01:55:29: I mean, we are commanded to pray. And these things most Christians would agree with. It's obvious. We are commanded to pray, obviously.
01:55:35: We see that in places like 1 Timothy 2. We are commanded to preach the
01:55:41: Word of God. We see that in 2 Timothy 4 as well. The public reading of Scripture, again, that is commanded in Scripture, 1
01:55:51: Timothy 4. And obviously the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
01:55:59: We get that from Ephesians 5 .19, Colossians 6 .13, that we are to do these things.
01:56:06: Where the debate comes in, and I think Michael Horton, I get this from him, so I want to give him the credit, talks about the fact that we can distinguish what we do in worship between elements of worship and circumstantial aspects of worship.
01:56:26: An element of worship is those things which we are required to do. And that is where we have—we are required to pray.
01:56:34: We're required to sing. We're required to preach the Word, public reading of Scripture. I would add in there as well, and I think he would as well, that the partaking of the
01:56:44: Lord's Supper. These are things that we are required to do. When we talk about circumstantial elements of worship, we're just talking about how those things are done.
01:56:53: The public reading of Scripture, does it have to be from the Bible? Can it be out of our bulletin? We are commanded to gather for corporate worship,
01:57:02: Hebrews 10, 24, and 25. But does that have to take place at 9 a .m. or 10 a .m. or 11 a .m.? Those are circumstantial, and that's fine.
01:57:11: But we have to be careful that we don't go beyond that which God commands.
01:57:19: And what God commands are those six elements. And so when we start getting into a lot of the antics of what we are seeing in a lot of churches today, where it feels really like a rock concert, there's a lot of entertaining that is going on, we simply don't see
01:57:43: God saying that that is what we ought to do in worship. And that's the difference between the relative principle of worship and the regulative principle of worship.
01:57:56: The relative principle of worship, sometimes called the normative principle of worship, is just that we should do what
01:58:03: God commands, but we can also do other things as well. And I just think that that is not the case.
01:58:10: I think if you look at the Old Testament, God is very clear that we are to only do what He prescribes.
01:58:16: Well, we are out of time. I look forward to having you back on this program, Hexen. You are a wonderful guest, and I know that we have many other conversations we could have on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio awaiting us.
01:58:29: And I hope that you are as eager to return as I am to have you return. I want to thank you for being such a great guest.
01:58:35: I want to thank our listeners for listening and also submitting questions.
01:58:41: If you have more information that you'd like to find out about the book we've been addressing, you can go to nsmpress .com.
01:58:52: That's N as in Nancy, S as in Sam, M as in Michael, press .com.
01:58:58: And you can put in the search engine Maldonado, M -A -L -D -O -N -A -D -O, or In the
01:59:05: King's Presence. Also, don't forget about the church where my brother is the pastor, tapestrycommunitychurch .org,
01:59:14: tapestrycommunitychurch .org. I want to remind you that please tune in tomorrow for our interview with Joshua Shooping, the ex -Eastern
01:59:24: Orthodox priest. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater