March 9, 2016 Show with Bill Shishko on “Worship that is Acceptable to God: Its Principles and Practices”

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

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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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.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 9th day of March 2016 and I am so delighted to have a return guest who

I definitely have counted among my very favorite guests for years including the old

Iron Sharpens Iron broadcast and not only that, one of my dearest friends. His name is

Bill Shishko, currently pastoring the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York.

He is a truly gifted and awesome and powerful and biblically faithful preacher, teacher, conference speaker, and who knows, maybe one day author if my prayers are answered.

And today we're going to be discussing a very important and highly debated topic, a theme that has sadly created not only controversy but division amongst the professing body of Christ and this topic today is worship that is acceptable to God, its principles and practice and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Bill Shishko.

Hey Chris, good to be back with you. By what accolades you give me, I'm wondering if it's really me that you're talking about.

As far as writing books, Chris, I'm doing it all the time. The Bible talks about writing epistles on the tablet of the human heart, not by ink but by the spirit, so I'm writing books all the time, the best ones to write.

Amen, well I hope you actually include the ink eventually as well because I think that you definitely have the gift to pursue that and in studio with me again is my friend the

Reverend Buzz Taylor and you two have something in common in that you're both alumni of Bob Jones University and on top of that both became theologically reformed and even

Presbyterian even after graduating Bob Jones. It's because of Bob Jones I go back to the scriptures.

I've even told former President Dr. Bob III the very fact that you're turning us to the word of God all the time means you're always going to be turning out reformed people.

That is a good way of looking at it. And Buzz, why don't you tell Pastor Bill where you have pastored because he was asking before we went on the air and you never got a chance to answer that.

Well I was the assistant pastor for a couple years in the Independent Baptist Church in Depew, New York which is near the

Buffalo Airport and after that I pastored about 45 miles southeast of Buffalo.

I'm originally from Buffalo, New York and I pastored in a little town of Sandusky south of Arcade if anybody knows where that is.

Nobody knows where Sandusky is. If you go 10 miles down the road from Sandusky, New York and say you're from Sandusky they say

Ohio. It's just one of those things but and of course it's got it's it's a name of infamy now but we won't get into that.

But I've also pastored a Church of God in Pennsylvania that's the of the Church of God General Assembly the

Finley, Ohio Church of God if you're familiar with that. It's a non -charismatic denomination Wesleyan Armenian predominantly.

And during that time I also went through a stint of charismania and I was working with the

Assemblies of God for a little while in for Teen Challenge and then all the while moving towards a reformed

Presbyterian and that job finished when I moved to Maine and my last church was in the capital area of Maine in a little town called

Fayette. And then I moved to Pennsylvania and I haven't been ministering. I've done a few weddings and things but I have not actually taken a church.

I'm not closed to that again it's just at this point in my life it wasn't in the schedule. And Buzz is currently the member or should

I say a member of the local PCA congregation. I'm not the member I'm a member yes. A member of Carlisle Reformed Presbyterian Church which is a

PCA congregation. And we are going to be discussing an issue that is rooted today in Hebrews 12 verses 28 through 29.

Therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our

God is a consuming fire. And I'm looking forward to having you exegete that for us

Pastor Bill and then also obviously expand the topic into the broader areas of what goes into worship and we're going to be breaking up the two hours into the first hour being the principles of worship and the second hour the practice of worship.

But before actually we start talking about that I forgot to have you give our listeners an update on yourself and the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square because people are really very frequently more than you might know asking me if you were already retired or what the case was with Bill Shishko.

So if you could let our listeners know so they're caught up to speed on that. I'd rather put the focus on the topic but since you ask and it's interesting you did ask because this coming

Lord's Day March 13th will mark the 35th anniversary of my installation as pastor in Franklin Square.

So it's quite an emotional issue. For a number of reasons, well two things have come into play here.

One, I have wanted to get back into radio. Chris, obviously you and I have talked a lot about this.

My native habitat when it comes to communication is not the microphone in the pulpit but the microphone in the studio and I really wanted to do more with radio.

In a sense doing what you're doing give Reformed and Presbyterian churches more exposure in the media than they're getting.

So I've had that burden. The second is our regional group of churches which we call a Presbytery, the

Presbytery of Connecticut and Southern New York of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was started some years ago with a goal of doing more evangelism in this obviously very influential and population dense metropolitan

New York area. And after a lot of ground work for this in January of this year my

Presbytery called me to serve as a regional home missionary beginning September 1st of this next year which would mean that according to that I would be stepping down as pastor in Franklin Square at the end of June and then have a couple of months sabbatical and begin with a ministry that about a third of the time would be spent with a program called the

Visit to the Pastors Study which would be similar in many ways Chris to what you're doing.

I'd just be doing it primarily through Redeemer Broadcasting Network and then the other two -thirds of the time helping groups that want to get churches

Reformed and Presbyterian churches planted in this area. So that's what

I'm looking at. The thing is a lot of people don't want to come to follow a minister who's been in the place for 35 years.

So your audience might pray for the pulpit committee and the elders here as they're searching for the candidate to come here as a pastor.

And you may remember that many years ago when I was working for WMCA radio

I actually came up with the title of a special broadcast that you sponsored nearly annually, a

Visit to the Pastors Study. Exactly right Chris. I'm going to have to pay you royalty. Well I'm going to give out our email address for those of our listeners who may want to ask questions.

It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

And please only remain anonymous if it's about a personal matter. Perhaps you have some kind of criticism about the worship that takes place in the church where you are a member and you don't want to identify.

In fact we would prefer you didn't identify yourself if that was the case or something of that effect.

But otherwise please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

I think a good place to start would be, it may seem like a no brainer or a simple question, but a definition of worship since there is disagreement over what falls under that category.

One blatant and painfully obvious reason why there is confusion about the definition is because the

Church of Rome insists that they are not worshipping Mary and the saints and images of them in all the activity that they do surrounding

Mary and the saints and the images which would include the kneeling before, praying to, singing to, all those kinds of things.

And of course even within modern evangelicalism you have differences of opinion on what is worship.

Some think it's only about the singing and the playing of music. But if you could give us a definition.

Yeah well, of course the Roman Catholic Church makes a distinction between Latreia and Julio, Greek words.

One worship would be what they say only is to go to God, Latreia.

And then Julio, what can go to the saints. And I don't want to go there, it's frankly a spurious distinction.

We're not supposed to worship the creature. I mean the Bible is very clear about that and you don't let that get immersed in the words that you use.

We're not to worship the creature rather than the creator. And any form of worship of anything other than God himself or anyone other than God himself is specifically forbidden by the first commandment, which of course the

Roman Catholic Church blends with the second. But that's for another day. The word range, the

Greek word is Latreia or Latruo, is used in the Old Testament primarily to speak of all of the things that were connected with the temple.

And we'll get back to that in a moment. So the priestly activity connected with the tabernacle and the temple was worship at that time.

And in other places the word when it's translated into the original is simply the word serve.

When Jesus quotes Deuteronomy, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve, is not just speaking of a general service but a worshipful service.

So that's the word range that people can study when they're using a concordance or they're looking at a topical

Bible or something that enables them to look at the Greek words lines, expository dictionary of biblical words.

But now to get to your specific question. In the New Testament, in most cases, the word worship is used for what we call all life worship.

When Paul brings together, begins the applicatory section in Romans after the long statement about God's sovereignty and salvation and so on, he says,

I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, which is in a sense similar to what the text will be looking at in Hebrews is that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.

And of course there you have the imagery of the tabernacle in the temple, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto

God, which is your reasonable, or actually the word he uses is logical, which is interesting, service.

And that's the word worship. That was what we would call all life worship in which basically everything is done to the glory of God.

But the New Testament also takes that language of, I'll call it priestly worship for a minute, and applies it to all believers, and particularly 1

Peter 2, all believers are called in royal priesthood that they might offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable unto

God. That's normally what we speak of when we speak of worship as I will today, personal worship, family worship, corporate worship.

It's in that sense in which the quote -unquote priestly functions of the

Old Testament, meeting with God, speaking to God, hearing God, giving oneself to God, and so on.

Those things that were done in sign and symbol in the Old Testament are now fulfilled in our various levels of worship, particularly corporate worship in the

New Testament. We already have a listener who has a question for you. His name is

Porter in Palmetto, Florida, and he asks, and I think it's a good way to start off some of the discussion about detailed definitions of worship.

His question is, the regulative principle of worship requires exclusive psalmody.

Do you practice it? And obviously there are differences of opinion amongst even the

Reformed on that, and even amongst the exclusive psalm singers, because some of them exclusively sing acapella and some do not.

But if you could define the regulative principle, since it's in his question, and answer his question about the exclusive psalm.

Yeah, that's a terrific question. Let me break it into two parts. Let me deal with the regulative principle, and then his specific question about exclusive psalmody.

The regulative principle grew out of the Protestant Reformation's emphasis on reforming worship according to the

Word of God. When we think of the Protestant Reformation, we tend to think about Luther's emphasis on justification by faith alone and Christ alone, and how a person's made right with God.

And that surely was an emphasis of the Protestant Reformation, and praise the Lord for it.

But as important was the Reformation of the whole

Church, the Christian Church, according to the Word of God. And that had almost as its highest point the

Reformation of worship according to the Word of God. While the Lutherans said, essentially along with the

Roman Catholic Church, if unless something is forbidden explicitly in the

Scriptures, we're permitted to practice it in worship. Those coming out of the

Reformed part of the Reformation, led by John Calvin, insisted, and rightly, we're to do only what the

Scriptures explicitly tell us to do in worship. And incidentally, that doesn't make these questions easy, or the answers easy, but it does tell you where we're going to get the answers.

And here's the reason. When the Scriptures say, you shall not add to the

Word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, Deuteronomy 424, in order that you might keep the commandments that I the

Lord your God have given you, that is stating an absolutely profound principle.

We don't take away from the Bible as so -called liberal theology does, neither do we add to it as various forms of legalism does.

Why? Because we are to keep the explicit commandments of God in what we do in life.

Because corporate worship is the highest expression of the life of believers this side of glory, and for that matter even in glory, that should be the most heightened expression of doing whatever we do according to what the

Word of God says. So that would be, that's the basic answer regarding the regulative principle.

I don't know, Chris, if you want to draw me out about that, or you want me to get into the psalm singing issue. I think that you've been very detailed on the regulative principle, unless Buzz has a question.

Then you can move on to the exclusive psalmody. Yeah, I'll be interested, especially Chris, the second hour, because I want to touch on some of the issues regarding what

Buzz called charismania, getting his input. Yeah, I don't hold to exclusive psalmody, and I say that very, very carefully because people like G .I.

Williamson is a spiritual father to me, and he holds to exclusive psalmody.

And I've heard men of God preach from your pulpit, like Ted Donnelly and Morris Roberts, who are exclusive psalm singers.

Yeah, and they, and out of deference to them, we will only use psalms when they're with us, and in fact we use a lot of psalms or psalm paraphrases or whatever in what we do in worship.

But this is my difference with exclusive psalmody. Number one,

I don't believe the scriptures either require explicitly or in illustration the use of only psalms in worship.

The exclusive psalmody argument takes, we are to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as being three different descriptions for the 150 psalms.

I just don't buy that interpretation of that verse, and I don't want to get into it now because it's a technical debate, but I don't,

I do not believe that textual argument, which I believe is their pivotal argument. The second argument is that even the

New Testament itself does not confine itself in its hymnody to the use of the psalms.

Arguably, and I realize it's a debate, arguably Philippians 2 and verses, at least verses 3 and following, were probably a hymn, or it was turned to a hymn in the early church as a hymn that quality to it.

But even if that's not the case, you have the songs in the book of Revelation. You have the song of Moses and the song of the

Lamb and the praise before the throne that goes beyond the psalms. If you want to use

Mary's Magnificat as a song, the song, so -called song of Mary, that's more than the psalms.

So I'm not persuaded by the textual argument in the

New Testament, nor am I persuaded because of the examples of the use of songs other than the psalms.

Our view is that, and we'll get to this in the next hour, it must be scriptural, and it must be singable, and it must be suitable, but that's later.

It must be scriptural, and I guess I would just add this at this point. One of my problems with just singing the psalms is that the psalms represent what the writer of Hebrews calls the shadowy times, which

C .S. Lewis would call in a different context the shadow lands. Christ has not come yet.

He's typified there, he's shown there, and he is shown in all the 150 psalms, but I have a real problem believing that when the

New Covenant comes, there's not new songs that accompany that, and in fact there are different songs with different covenants.

So anyway, those would just be kind of some of the range of arguments I'd make, and in doing it, I want to say

I love singing the psalms. If it were a choice between only singing,

I'll say, put it this way, gospel songs, and only singing the psalms, I would be right in the camp of exclusive psalmody, given the character of some of the doggerel we have as enmity today, but I can't be persuaded of the exclusive psalm argument, and I reject the view, incidentally, that it's a violation of the regulative principle to use hymns as well as psalms.

And of course, added to what you just said, is that the exclusive psalmody position would prohibit

Christians from praising Christ by name, specifically.

Yeah. By the name of Jesus. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the New Testament, Psalm 2, for example, speaks of, in some cases, you have the anointing, you have the

Messiah referred to, certainly you can do that, but you're right, to call his name

Jesus, which is certainly hallowed, you know, you'll call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

That is a profound difference from what the types and the ceremonies in the

Old Testament had the power to do. Okay, well, if you could now go through some of these principles of worship.

Yeah, I think Hebrews 12, in verses 28 and 29, and people have to keep this in mind, it's the culmination of a very lengthy warning section that actually begins in Hebrews chapter 10, which includes in it, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, the danger, the

Hebrews were at least converted Jews and probably converted

Gentiles who lived in or near Rome, probably at the time that Nero was emperor and probably at the time the persecutions were beginning under that emperor, who was really,

I mean, he was so the danger, the fear was that these professed

Christians would go back to the Old Testament ceremonies because Judaism was acceptable in the

Roman Empire, Christianity was not, certainly not at that point, so the whole theme of Hebrews is don't turn back, don't turn back, and when there's these apostasy passages that are fearful, it's not speaking so much about indulging constantly in a certain sin, showing that we're not

Christians, is not listening to the call of the gospel to come to Christ, but anyway, so Hebrews 10 .25,

you've got this warning section is building, and all of this culminates in chapter 12, when the writer speaks of the immense blessings we have, we haven't come to the

Old Testament Sinai, we have come, we have come in the spirit, in union with Christ, we have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels in festal gathering, which is worship language, to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, who the book of Revelation teaches us are worshiping

God, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, because this warning section actually begins after that magnificent repetition of the new covenant passage.

So then, the writer says, and this has got to be grasped, he says, see that you don't refuse him who is speaking.

Now that's God, and it's not God speaking through a completed

Bible, because the Bible hasn't been completed yet, and it certainly hasn't been disseminated.

He is speaking about God speaking by the word of God preached, which of course the book of Hebrews was in its original, for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

And so those warnings now are not just what we read in Hebrews, they're the warnings as they are preached in the current day, and in the gathering of God's people, and then he refers to the shaking of the world, and a picture of the dissolution of the order under the curse in the last day.

Then he comes to this, therefore, and Chris I'm using ESV, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And I always tell people that gratefulness is the bloodstream of the Christian life.

One of the marks of unbelief, Paul says in Romans 1, neither were they thankful. They not only were idolaters, they certainly weren't thankful to God.

Thankfulness is the bloodstream of our Christian life, and that we are receiving this kingdom that can't be shaken, we're setting our affections there, we're setting our affections on glory, and worship itself is really communion and glory, which we'll get to.

And thus, in that way, as those who know they're receiving a kingdom that can't be shaken and are full of thankfulness, thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship.

And the word acceptable is fascinating. It's a word that basically means very careful, very circumspect, very cautious, very reverent.

It's not this sit down in Starbucks and have a latte and talk to Papa up in heaven.

You're dealing, you're really being careful because you're dealing with God. Now, I assume that you have no objection to people sitting in Starbucks and not only praying, but evangelizing.

No, certainly. That's a popular image today. Yes, I know we call

God Abba, means Father, but the next word with reverence is reverence.

You have reverence for parents. Of course, we live in a culture that doesn't revere authorities. That's a cultural sin.

But I mean, reverence to God and reverence to authorities in the Old Testament were both linked.

And irreverence in the Old Testament to civil authorities and blasphemy toward God were crimes punishable by death.

I mean, that's how the Old Testament is wanting to inculcate in us a serious reverence for God.

And what's interesting, and I know we probably have to break here, but the word awe here, I think it's only used here in the

New Testament. And it's not used very frequently in even Greek classical literature.

But the word means fear. It is a fear that has even an element of terror in it.

And that's why this ends, for our God is a consuming fire. So in this magnificent text, you have on the one hand this tremendous gratefulness that we're receiving a kingdom in which, among other things, we come to God.

And because of that, we are grateful, we are reverent toward Him, especially when you consider what it took to secure this kingdom, and never forget that our

God is a consuming fire. And the way Professor John Murray, in his outstanding essay on the fear of God, in his book

The Principles of Conduct, which I think has been republished as a separate thing. Anyway, Professor Murray makes this distinction, and it's excellent.

There is always to be the reverence that we're to have for God, because He's God.

You can't help but have that. And that reverence is accompanied by a thankfulness and a joy and a delight when we are listening to God and looking to Christ.

But if we're not doing that, people are walking in disobedience to the commands of God and so on, and they're practically speaking living like unbelievers, then there has to be the fear, because God is and always will be a consuming fire.

So that's kind of, in a nutshell, the richness of that text on worship. And just as you always were before, you are quite the punctual individual, and you stop speaking exactly when we need to go to a break.

And I am going to go to a break right now, and if anybody would like to join us on the air, as Porter did, with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. And by the way, Porter, give us your full address, because you have won a brand new

New American Standard Bible. And that is compliments of the publishers of the

New American Standard Bible who sponsor this broadcast and who are now celebrating their 74th year of service to the

Church. And we thank them for being faithful sponsors of Iron Trump and Zion going all the way back to 2006.

So I hope, Porter, that you're not a King James only advocate, and this

Bible will be meaningless to you, because I happen to know that a lot of the exclusive psalm singers happen to be coinciding with their views,

King James only advocates, but not all of them. But I hope that you enjoy the Bible, Porter.

And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, we look forward to hearing from you at chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square on our theme today,

Worship that is Acceptable to God. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

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That's wrbc .us. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, for am

I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

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Welcome back. This is Chris Imes, and if you just tuned us in, our guest today is my old friend, Pastor Bill Shishko, one of my favorite guests of all time.

He is of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and we are discussing worship that is acceptable to God.

In the studio with me today is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor. And if you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarenson at gmail .com.

We have an anonymous listener who says, I am a member of a Reformed church that has some charismatic influence but is not full -blown charismatic or Pentecostal, and they believe that dance is an acceptable expression of worship because it is found in the

Old Testament. This makes me feel uncomfortable, should it? Yeah, well, is it proper to say that for the next hour,

Chris, when we deal with some of the circumstances of worship? Yeah, definitely. Let me just let our listener know, be patient.

Well, that's going to encourage him to listen to the whole program, which he should do anyway. And also, please give me your full mailing address.

I promise I will not identify you because you've requested to remain anonymous, but you will receive a free genuine leather.

Actually, it's a bonded leather, but a very beautiful New American Standard Bible, absolutely free of charge, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB. If you provide for me your full mailing address. But if you could continue where you left off about the

Old Testament's clear and frightening warnings about approaching

God in an irreverent manner. Yeah, well, and that brings us back to what really is the heart of the

Hebrews 1228 text, at least with respect to our topic. You'll be thrilled with this because the

New American Standard is such a faithful translation of the Greek text, and it is the best in that regard.

I'm using the Greek text itself, so I'm doing the NASB one better. How's that? Okay. But the text is, therefore, we're in the process.

We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us, some translate it, let us have grace, but it's a phrase for let us be thankful.

And it's that thankfulness, literally, through which we worship

God, and the word there is acceptably. The Greek word is eurestos.

And when you read in the Old Testament a sweet -smelling savor, or God was pleased with their worship, it was worship that was done in accordance with the word of God, which is really quite a fascinating theme, incidentally, of Moses building the tabernacle and that refrain in Exodus.

You know, he did it just as God commanded, just as God commanded, just as God commanded. And then, of course,

God comes and fills the tabernacle with his glory. But see, that brings the question up, then, what is acceptable or pleasing worship in both the

Old and the New Covenant? But we're looking at the New Covenant, and worship is, I mean, we're talking about adoration, we're talking about communion, we're talking about service.

But I think three things everyone has to keep in mind about what is acceptable worship.

Number one, and most importantly, it begins with the heart. All true religion begins not with the posture of our bodies or with a liturgy, but it begins with our own heart.

Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and don't be stubborn. In other words, we're pliable in God's hands, we listen to him, and when

God changes our hearts, we turn from the creature to the creator.

I love to say we go from being self -centered sinners to being God -centered saints.

And so, you know, we're caught up in God when we're converted. I mean, that's the mark of a converted person.

Now, the second thing is, because you're caught up in God, you are of necessity caught up in his word and in his works.

And it's both of those things. If you're not caught up in his word, then you have mysticism or your own imagination.

And if you're not caught up in God's works, you're caught up in idols that are called the works of man's hands.

And that's, again, a phenomenal theme. I love this theme because God, why were the

Israelites brought out of Egypt? Well, it wasn't first a metaphor for deliverance from bondage, though it was that.

It was so they might go out and worship me. And of course, Chris, I love to say this to you as a

Baptist, but it's interesting that when Pharaoh wouldn't let the little children go with the Israelites, Moses said, no way, the children come too.

But that's just for another day. I'm sure Chris needed that. Thank you very much.

I'm sorry we've run out of time. Anyway, but more to the point.

So they're delivered out of the land of Egypt. They're delivered through the Red Sea. There's the works of God. It's a consummate

Old Testament image leading us to the resurrection of Christ. And then what does God do?

He gives them his word. So you have word and works together. And the beauty of this is this all comes together in the

New Testament in Christ, who is the word made flesh. And he's also the consummate work of God made flesh.

He's the Savior. He's a Redeemer. And so what this means,

Christian worship, we're caught up in Christ. That's really, really important. And then the third principle is because we're in Christ, we're scrupulous.

You want to be scrupulous to do everything to God's glory. What does Jesus say? Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And it's very interesting how those temptations of Christ, in a real sense, are rebutted by Jesus with worship language.

You should worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. You don't tempt the Lord your God. Anyway, so in all life worship, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you do it all to your glory of God, to the glory of God.

And what I called a while ago, our court called priestly worship, First Peter, two priestly type worship, personal, family, and corporate worship.

What does God tell us to do in his word? How from a new heart do I do it to his glory?

You know, some have, I think, really diminished the awe and reverence and very uniqueness of the corporate worship of God by stressing that all of life is worship.

So therefore, they feel free to incorporate things that you would do in your common everyday life into their worship service.

Because, hey, if everything is worship, then why shouldn't we be allowed to participate in this, in a worship service?

Yeah, that's a profound insight, Chris. It really is important. I mean, again, while the

Testament does primarily speak of all life worship, the worship in First Peter 2, which is really referring to corporate worship, is not all life worship.

It is a specific, as a holy priesthood, offering up praises to God.

So yeah, that's very important. Buzz, I think, wanted to get a word in there. Well, I was just making some notes for the second hour because of this.

Yeah, so I will definitely come back to that. I want to go back to the all of life worship when we get into the practice.

Yeah, good, good. And the thing that I have heard about what you started off the program with, the regulative principle,

I've even heard that from some Reformed people, is that if you are really a sinner saved by grace and you recognize the joy and the freedom of being released from that bondage, the regulative principle, they will say, is not even a biblically binding principle itself, just like the

Roman Catholics say, solo scriptura is not scriptural, and that you're really putting the joy and freedom of worship in a stranglehold.

How do you respond to that? Yeah, that's a great question, Chris. When I preached on this a few weeks ago, in fact, actually, if people want to get the sermon, which you so graciously promoted through Facebook, this was the message called,

Worship that's Acceptable to God. It was done in the OPC Franklin Square on the morning of February 28th of this year, and you can get that through sermonaudio .com.

But I began by saying, these are the things that we hear, should worship be contemporary or should it be traditional?

When we worship, are we too much worshiping as slaves?

That's what you're getting, because we're so only wanting to do what the Word of God says, or are we coming as children?

Is it a seriousness? Is it a joy that we're to have freedom and form?

Is it love or fear? And the way I end the message, it basically is saying, it's both in all of these cases, precisely because of the regulative principle.

We'll deal with more contemporary worship next time, but there's nothing wrong with using hymns or even versions of the

Psalms, if we believe in exclusive psalmody that are done in language that's contemporary and with tunes that are easier to sing.

Who's opposing this? I mean, this becomes a strongman. On the other hand, with traditional worship, as we'll mention in the next hour, or I should say more traditional hymns, remember that in our worship, we are worshiping with the saints in the past, and it is supposed to be acceptable worship.

What does that mean? And that means, at least, we're going to have some linkage with how the

Church has historically understood worship. Joy or seriousness? Both! The Scriptures talk about laments.

I mean, full of lamentations. Everything doesn't reduce to happiness or joy.

And there's a serious joy, and there's a joyful seriousness. Slaves? No, we're not slaves.

The language of a bondservant is not speaking of a servitude. It says that, praise the

Lord, we're free in Christ as servants. If the Son makes you free, you're free indeed, but you take

His yoke upon you. So that's another false dilemma. Freedom in form?

Well, that's a little bit more technical to get into. It's corporate worship. If you have a congregation of 100 people, it's not supposed to be 100 people doing his or her own thing in worship.

Personal worship may be a little bit broader in what's done, but there has to be a form so the body can follow that.

And then, love or fear? Both! You know, you love your parents, but there's a respect for your parents.

So we've got to be careful. You hit it right, Chris, right at the beginning when you talked about the polarization that has come among believers over these issues, which is really tragic.

We have a listener in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, BB, who wants to know, is it considered worship when a

Christian during his private life outside of the corporate assembly is using his gifts to praise

God, such as if he is a painter, or dare say I, a sculptor, not that he is creating images to be venerated, but that he is just creating images as fruits of his gifts that God has given him for aesthetic pleasure, and while creating them, he views it as an act of worship and thanks and praise to God for the gift he has received.

Absolutely. That's Romans 12, 1 and 2, which is you present your body, your whole body, as a living sacrifice.

Living sacrifice is everything in life. The burnt offering, which is what that's probably referring to, everything was offered up to God.

Which is living sacrifice is holy, and here again, acceptable to God.

See, this is not just my doing, or what I happen to feel is right, which is your spiritual or logical worship, and that's what

BB's question is all about. She alludes to the issue of images. The Bible never prohibits making images.

There were images in the tabernacle, in the temple, but you're not to worship God by the images.

They're not things that we actually put our devotion to as in the place of God, and in the

New Testament, of course, those symbols and types are done away with.

With respect to corporate worship, we now have a completed word and the Holy Spirit, and above all, we have

Christ, and so we worship in him and through him and by him and so on.

Well, as you know, there are some sharp disagreements, though, even amongst like -minded brethren in all other areas, men who may even share the same pew at church, there's a sharp contrast in the view of whether or not any images are ever to be used, even in an illustrated

Bible, I mean images of Christ, that is, even in an illustrated Bible, even in a children's

Bible, even in artwork in the home. What is your view on that in regard to even not only paintings, but even if someone were to have a statue of Christ that was never to be used as an act or as an object of veneration or worship, or it's just used as a meaningful decoration in their home?

Yeah, well, I stand with what all of the Reformed confessions say, in which they very explicitly and unanimously condemn the making of images of Christ or of any of the three persons of the

Trinity, or even however you could do it, of the Godhead as a whole, and here's the reason for that.

Number one, we're not able to do it, because we're dealing with infinity. I mean, I love to tell people that each wink of Jesus' eye was a perfect demonstration of the attributes of God.

We can't do that in a painting, that's number one. Number two, with respect to people having images, the dilemma is this.

Whenever Christ is seen, at least in His resurrection, He is worshipped, and if you're going to see

Christ in an image or anything else, you must worship, and otherwise you develop a very casual, let alone erroneous, view of who

Christ is, and when you contemplate

Christ, there's that worshipfulness there. The third thing is this. We have a completed

Scripture and the Holy Spirit, and so any depiction of Christ is, in the nature of the case, going to detract from what

God is. For a simple example, our God is a consuming fire.

How can that be depicted in a way that will not detract from the depth, and for that matter, even the horror of that?

There's no way a creature using created things can do that. You have to use what the

Word of God says, and of course, this is why God is to be made known, not just by His Word read, but by His Word taught and preached.

The Reformers were unanimous in that, and we need to study their arguments. Just for your listeners who enjoy reading, and I'm sure you have many,

John Owen, in his volume one of his collected writings on the glory of the

Redeemer, the glory of Christ, he has one section in there in which he treats that issue in maybe three or four pages in, as typical of Owen, unanswerable arguments with respect to images of Christ.

Now, did not Luther, though, take a different view than the other Reformers on that?

Yeah, and remember that Luther was, and I love

Luther. In fact, I just did a class on Luther. Praise the Lord for Luther. It's interesting that Time Magazine regarded, well, 1999, when we came to the, well, it wasn't really the beginning of the second millennium, that was actually 2001, but you know what's, anyway, they said the two leading, most important figures of the second millennium

AD were Johann Gutenberg, who invented the movable type printing press, and thank

God, just a generation after him, Martin Luther, because Luther's emphasis on liberty of conscience under the word of God was pivotal, but Luther was very much a

Johnny One Note. He went back to justification by faith with everything, and that's why he called

James a right destroyer epistle, because of James' emphasis on obedience as a demonstration of faith.

So Luther really didn't think through those issues that well, and I think Luther, probably

Chris apropos of your comment before, was so thrilled with the liberty that he had as a

Christian that, you know, here you worship

God with joy, with delight, with everything, and I think he was obviously very sensitive to what the word of God said, but I think maybe it was that less than fully formed view of what worship, what was required in worship, that allowed

Luther to go in a broader way than we would. Brothers has a question? Well yeah, and also

I think at a time like this it's also appropriate to let people know, in case they ever saw this, that the painting on your wall is

John Calvin, not Jesus, okay? He's talking about my studio. There's a bearded gentleman in a painting on my wall in the studio.

I'm concerned about those who can't remain with us for the second hour, and I just, you know, I want to make sure that I'm understanding the principle before we go on to the practice in the second hour.

You're saying then, if I'm hearing you correctly, it can be summed up by thankfulness and fear, or reverence.

Reverence, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think buzz is a lot of other language in the scriptures. There is a language of joy, there is a language of lamentation, and I think all that fits in with this phrase, what is pleasing, what is pleasing worship.

But yes, the bloodstream is thankfulness and everything for receiving a kingdom that can't be shaken, and then connected with that is the fact that there is a reverence and a fear, knowing

God is a consuming fire. We're going to be going to another break right now, and we do have a couple of listeners waiting to have their questions answered, asked and answered on the air, and if you could be patient with us, we will get to you as soon as possible.

And our email address, if you'd like to join them as well, is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away, we're going to be right back with Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host today, as we discuss the theme, what worship is acceptable to God?

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Thanks a lot to Pastor Bob Waldeman, Sal D 'Antona, and the whole team over there of Brethren in Christ, who are sponsoring

Iron Trump and Zion radio. And now we are back on the program to discuss worship acceptable to God with our guest

Bill Shishko, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York. And in studio with me is the

Reverend Buzz Taylor. I will never call him the right Reverend Buzz Taylor, no matter how much he insists upon it.

That's because he thinks I'm the wrong Reverend Buzz Taylor. And definitely not the most right,

Reverend. But we are transitioning, I believe, unless you have something more you want to say about the principles, we're going into the practice of worship.

That's right, looking forward to it, Chris. Don't call me Reverend either. God alone is

Reverend. God alone is right. That's right. Well, you know, since Bill, you and I come from a similar background, we remember those chapel sayings of Bob Jones Sr.,

where one of them he said was, there's no difference between the sacred and the secular. And in the last hour, talking about worship, we were talking about all of life worship.

And this has been an issue that I've come through, having gone, as you heard in the first hour,

I've been kind of around the block when it comes to churches. And it hasn't been until recently that I even thought about the concept of worship in any kind of serious way, because it used to be just, you know, whatever was done is what we did.

Well, I think you used the term recently kind of loosely. You've been reformed for about a decade, haven't you?

Yes, yes. Even longer than that, as far as reform. But, you know, it takes a long time once you've gone reformed to learn all there is to reform theology.

Every true Christian is reformed in his or her heart because he or she believes that God saves, period.

Yes, well, as one said, we are not only, the problem is we hit the pause button back in the 16th century and we are reformed instead of reforming.

So I've been still reforming. And one of the areas that I've been challenged on over and over again has been this matter of worship.

And to be perfectly honest with you, I have found it rather confusing. I'm not sure if it's just that complicated or if it's just not being stated well or whatever.

But I see, you know, as I was mentioning, Bob Jones saying there's no difference between the sacred and the secular.

And it seems to me we have a pendulum that swings both ways since we're talking about the practice of worship now. That some people believe that whatever you can do in the world is acceptable to bring into worship because there's no difference.

And then other people would say whatever you do in worship cannot be accepted in the world because it's worldly.

You know, it goes the other way. And I remember our friends in Alberta, I think you know who

I'm talking about, were dealing with me for quite a while. And of course the two subjects of exclusive sodomity and instruments only.

And they mentioned that they like to go to jazz concerts and things like that. And I'm thinking, well, wait a minute now.

But you know, yet when it says in the Psalms, praise him with the sound of the trumpet, you don't dare try to do that because that's no longer, you know, biblical worship.

And that's the whole point there. A good friend that I respect used to refer to, for example, liturgical worship as biblical worship.

And then there was all other. What about this? Wow, Chris, how many more programs are going to develop this?

Okay, let me, Buzz, before I touch that, it's a great complex of questions.

Let me mention a few books that I think will be helpful to listeners because Buzz, as you've said, this is a massive topic.

It literally is about everything. I'll give you a reason for that in a minute. But it's important to study.

In many ways, A .W. Tozer and I would differ theologically. But when it comes to worship, if you can get his book,

Worship, it's called Worship of the Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church.

It is basically his exposé from 60 years ago of how a historic understanding of worship was being degenerated by evangelistic crusades.

And what we would know of today, essentially, is contemporary worship. I don't agree with Tozer on everything.

But as a man, it was God -saturated. He was excellent. The classic from a

Reform perspective, although it's what dated, is O Come, Let Us Worship by Robert Rayburn.

R -A -Y -B -R -U -N. He used to be professor at Covenant Seminary.

And his book is a good primer on what's called subtitled Corporate Worship in the Evangelical Church.

But O Come, Let Us Worship is a good basic introduction. Now that, more recently,

Brian Chappell, C -H -A -P -E -L -L, who was president of Covenant Seminary some years ago, has written an interesting book, a good volume for pastors to consult,

Christ -Centered Worship, Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice. And he does more than Rayburn does with specifics of the so -called liturgy.

And then another that's come out, you'll not agree with everything, but it's very thoughtful,

Worship by the Book, edited by D .A. Carson. Worship by the Book, with contributions by Mark Ashton and Kent Hughes and Tim Keller.

That's a very thoughtful volume that I think would touch buzz on some of your questions. And then most recently, a fellow named

David Peterson, who is from Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia.

And when things come out of that college, I pay attention to it. But David Peterson's book, Encountering God Together, leading worship services that honor

God, minister to his people, and build his church, Encountering God Together, these help come at these topics.

Now, let me, and Buzz, you know, there's no difference between the sacred and the secular.

Let me give you a fancy answer, and then break it down. That view suffers from an overly realized eschatology.

You got that one, Chris? I have two post -millennialists surrounding me here.

Well, that's good. It'll keep you straight. You know, Psalms 149, and even in Psalms 1 and 2, are keyhole

Psalms, that we look at the whole Psalter. Psalms 149 and 150, which, interestingly, refer to praising

God with a dance in Psalm 149, 3, and 154. Those two

Psalms are speaking of eternity. They're giving a picture of what all eternity will be in a perfect state.

And then there will be no difference between the sacred and the secular. And, you know, it'll be the fulfillment of the promise of the prophet, that even the bells on the horses will be called holy.

So, yeah, I appreciate the view. It's simply incorrect. A jazz concert is a jazz concert.

Doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's a jazz concert. A movie's a movie. And worship those to be governed explicitly by what the word of God says, because that's what we're to live out of this side of heaven.

So I don't know, Buzz, you know, parry with me a little bit on that. Well, you know,

I think about passages like, in the Old Testament, I did not bring my concordance, so sorry,

I cannot find it. But I know that it was said, too, that there were certain perfumes and incense that was to be used for worship that was not, specifically, we're told that is not to be used in your homes.

And it was for worship. Worship is to smell different than non -worship, you know.

And what's interesting is, in the worship services I've been in, where almost anything goes, it is primarily by dispensationalists who would look at all the things of the

Old Testament and say, well, that's not for the New Testament. They tend to be very dispensational. And, of course, I'm talking more in your charismatic and Pentecostal circles there.

And, of course, you have the example of Nadab and Abihu, who were destroyed by God.

And they would have been perfectly right to burn that incense in their home if it was just to cover up a stench or something.

But when they used it as an act of worship, it brought them to their death. That's a fascinating text in relation to our

God is a consuming fire. Remember that these are, the writer of Hebrews calls it, or Paul to the

Galatians says, the Old Testament is a pedagogue to lead us to Christ. It's a schoolmaster holding us by the hand.

And God was showing at that very early time in the life, the corporate life of Israel, you don't play with God.

They offered up strange fire. And they are, I think the language, if I'm not mistaken, is they were consumed by the fire.

So God is teaching things there. But anyway, that's far afield from your point, I think,

Buzz. So what are you saying? Essentially, how do we know what can go into corporate worship and what can't?

Precisely, yes. Yeah, okay. Because that is the issue that, well, let me put it this way too.

This helps you to understand my dilemma is I am a trumpet player. And, you know, let me just, without any pride, say not mediocre.

You know, I have a particular ability. Would you like to move to Franklin Square? We'd love to use your worship service.

Yeah, please do, Buzz. Move as far away as possible. Tempting, very tempting.

But, you know, so I have to make the decisions here. Okay, what's appropriate and what's not?

And of course, like I said, just in the past years, when

I was in the charismatic and Pentecostal circles, anything went. So, you know, I don't want to swing the pendulum so far the other way.

Yeah, sure. I appreciate that. Well, let me back up a little bit on this. One more thing in bibliography, and then

I'll cease. Okay, okay. But people can, they don't even have to buy the book. They can go to www .opc,

like Orthodox Presbyterian Church, dot org, O -R -G. And you search on that, and I think it's a section on standards, and you'll get the

OPC Book of Church Order, which includes the Directory for Public Worship that was worked on for decades, literally.

I mean, and there's really nothing like this that I know of in any American Reformed Church. It is a masterful statement in the

Directory about principles for worship and so on. And my guess, Buzz, is if you would go through that carefully, a lot of your questions would be addressed.

But let me back up. The pattern for worship, there's many you can use, but the one that is almost always used first is

Isaiah Chapter 6, where you have, Isaiah is in the presence of God.

He confesses his own sins. I'm, you know, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. I'm a man of unclean lips.

I dwell among a people of unclean lips. And a kohl, of course, is placed on his lips, a symbol of purification.

He's given the word of God, and he goes out, and he obeys. That kind of skeletal structure has been used as the basic structure for,

I'm going to simply say, biblically -oriented worship. It's a dialogue. God speaks, and we respond.

The difference in corporate worship is it's a corporate response, and the minister who's meant to be the worship leader leads.

And then your three main parts of the worship service are the approach to God, and the

OPC. They have something I regard as extremely important, because I think the New Testament does.

You have a salutation. When God's people gathered in the New Testament, in the New Testament letters, they were meant to be read in those gatherings.

They begin with a grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it's not that it's not reformed worship if you don't do that, but it's

God is greeting his people. And people respond to that as a body with singing.

That's why we always say in reformed churches, the congregations, the choir. There is often a confession of faith at the beginning.

There is certainly a confession of sin of some sort there, and that can be done by a responsive reading, it can be done by the minister leading the people.

Assurance of pardon is really, really important. The Reformation, along with being about justification by faith, the

Reformation of the Church, Reformation of worship, it was about assurance. We can know, over against Rome's view, that we are assured that we are in Christ and that we have everlasting life.

And then, of course, the reading and the preaching of the word. Those are your basic things. Now, as far as your point about what goes into...

We'll talk about music or instruments. Well, let's talk about the singing, first of all. Our elders,

I think they've hit it right as we've worked through this. One, if music, is it scriptural?

I would agree there, definitely. Yeah, number two, is it singable?

Because reformed worship, it's not a choir separate from the congregation doing its thing.

It's people who are singing. And that's most beautifully exemplified in our brothers and sisters in the

Covenanter Church, which is our exclusive solidity. You hear them sing in four parts, you think you're in heaven.

In a cappella as well. Yes, in a cappella as well. So you learn from this, is it singable? And then the third, is it suitable?

Is it, it may be something you might want to sing at a camp, which is more casual, but in the...

Now, this is a little bit more subjective, but does it really fit a worship service?

So that's what we do. We've got to come up with our own songbook, which is an addition of the

Trinity Hymnal. Instruments, I think, Buzz, are the same thing. What do the scriptures speak of?

They speak of wind instruments. They do speak of the trumpet, which actually has a very important function in the economy of God.

Oh, yes. This is the last trumpet. You know that. You could give a lecture on that, which would be fascinating. Every time I hear Buzz playing the trumpet,

I'm hoping that it is the last trumpet. You know, and laugh as we will, but we're meant to.

It's a sign of victory, sure. But the other thing is string instruments, whether it be a piano, whether it be a violin.

The guitar, you know, to me it's a question.

I'm not definite on that one one way or the other, but I mean, you know yourself, Buzz, you're a musician.

Strings, particularly the violin, are probably the closest in what they do to what the human voice does.

We have vocal cords. So our view with the instruments is that they are an extension of the singing of the people.

If you have a prelude or something like that, yeah, but in the corporate worship, it's an extension. So if you've got a triumphant thing about the return of Christ, praise the

Lord, get a trumpet in there. The Bible does. But I just wanted to quick give a plug to some very valuable people that help support

Iron Sharpens Iron. Whenever you hear Bill Shishko or anybody else mentioning a good, solid reform book, immediately think of CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

Their website is CVBBS .com, CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com.

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Patty and Todd Jennings, owners of CVBBS .com. So just write that down.

Wherever you listen to Iron Sharpens Iron, write it next to your computer or wherever and make sure that you revisit them over and over again for the finest reform literature and buzztail.

Of course, Todd and I play trumpets together all the time. That's right. We're good friends. So I just had to give that plug in there,

Pastor Bill. But go into some of the history behind Reformed worship. Yeah, that's another fascinating, really fascinating question.

Well, the Reformation, particularly with Calvin, was about the Reformation of worship.

And if people can get Calvin's tracts and treatises, I think it's volume two, it's actually interesting to see the liturgy that Calvin used at Geneva, which is not,

I mean, it's heavily minister -oriented, but it'll give you an idea of what that is.

And Reformed worship kind of developed in that way in Holland and in Scotland.

I think one difference, which is to me quite interesting, the Dutch in particular, in that part of the

Reformation, when they were dealing with the growth of Arminianism that was really beginning to ravage the churches, the

Dutch churches had forms that were to be read for the Lord's Supper, for discipline, baptism, and you had to read those, okay, because they wanted uniformity in worship because they realized worship is a metaphor.

And if you, I mean, to put it very simply, if people are kind of footloose and fancy -free and creative in the way they are doing theology, they'll be footloose and fancy -free and creative in their worship, and we don't want to be footloose and fancy -free.

So there was that emphasis. Scotland was very different because there you had the

English church that was known and still today the Anglican church wanted to impose a book of common prayer on the churches, and particularly in Scotland there's that famous story of Jenny Geddes who threw her three legged stool efficiently.

And so for the Scots and Buzz for our background in the Presbyterianism, and even

Chris for yours in the Calvinistic Baptist world in the UK, our history has been very much a direct, directories for worship.

They were given some guidance as to what to do, but we're not bound to read these forms.

Now, what I'm intrigued with is I'm one who does not like to be bound by forms, although I will sometimes read them if it's into edification, but let's face it, the situation we are living in, in what really has become an ecclesiastical

Barnum & Bailey service, it seems to me would argue more for,

I don't believe in the imposition of forms, but a respect for what these forms contain.

I think it was the United Reformed Churches of North America congregation was a form that was read for excommunication, and I mean, it was very, very moving to hear that, to hear that put in front of you, and the minister read it with thoughtfulness, and if I'm not mistaken, with some tears there.

So anyway, so I mean, these are some kind of in -house discussions. I think we look at it, again,

I'm thinking of the way our elders approach it as an Orthodox Presbyterian Church. First Corinthians 14 has two basic principles.

One is it done decently and in order, and we will modify our order a bit within the bounds of our directory for worship, because of the second principle, let all things be done unto edification, unto building up, and we followed those principles in light of the other standards we have in the

Scriptures, and quite frankly, Buzz, I don't know, we don't run into too many difficulties with things like that.

Really? Well, you know, you mentioned, Bill, the phrase footloose, and it immediately reminded me of a question that was asked almost immediately at the beginning of the first hour on dance, liturgical dance or otherwise in worship.

Yeah. Buzz, you want to go with that one? Well, we had dancers in one of my churches, not my churches that I pastored, but the one

I attended. They had a team of dancers, and I'll say it was beautiful. I mean... Well, do you approve of it now?

Well, that's a tough one because of the fact that I do see it in the Old Testament, but you know, let me put it this way.

I hesitate to quote Archie Bunker on a program like this, but I remember one time when he was in jail and a guy was listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, and he said he wants us to come on our knees, not shake until all our parts fall off us.

Interesting. Well, you know, this is, I guess, an ecclesiastical dance thing.

I'd say a couple things. One, there certainly is no reference to dance in worship in the

New Testament. In the Old Testament, the references are very, very sparse.

Yes. I mean, the one everybody thinks of is David dancing with joy before the

Lord, and of course, when he was made fun of by his wife. Yes. But remember, and again, this is,

I have to go back, I'm not sure actually even that that word dance must mean dance as we think about it.

I think it's a, you know, probably jumped or that kind of a thing, but going on that, that was a spontaneous expression of joy and delight, and it wasn't in the context of temple worship.

It was, you know, it's kind of like, you know, our children, you know, one of our children comes to faith in Christ and comes home and says,

Dad, I was saved, you know, and jumps up and down. What am I going to do? Is he violating the regulative principles? I would jump with him.

So there's that. And then of course, there are the two references in Psalm 149 .3

and Psalm 154, but Psalm 149 is really very much what talks about the sword and so on.

It's actually the, I could put it this way, the worship of God at the day of judgment, when

God's justice is shown in Psalm 150, that's all past. And there's when you do have that sacred -secular distinction is eliminated, and we don't have temple worship then, or even

New Covenant worship as we have now, then everything is caught up in worship. But I think the bottom line is the

Bible nowhere commands that worship be done, or that dancing be done as part of worship. Right, yeah.

And we're going to go to our final break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air, this is your final opportunity.

We've only got about a half -hour left, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I thank a couple of you who have been patiently waiting for your questions to be read and answered.

So we'll get to you, God willing, soon. And don't go away. We're going to be right back after these final messages with Pastor Bill Shishko of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and Rev. Buzz Taylor, my co -host, as we discuss worship that is acceptable to God.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arms. And for the last 90 minutes, if you just tuned us in, we have been interviewing

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, on acceptable worship.

Well, that is worship that is acceptable to God. In studio with me is Reverend Buzz Taylor. And you can join us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com

with your own questions. And we do have an anonymous listener who asks, I have a very close friend who is a pastor, but I have to admit that I believe that his church has become a cult of youth.

There seems to be total disregard to what elderly people and senior saints regard as true reverent worship, and they are driving them out.

I do not know how to approach the situation with my friend in fear of breaking the friendship, but I cannot think that this is a dangerous trend in the church today where the senior saints are being given no respect or regard as if all the churches want them to leave anyway.

Your thoughts? Well, Chris, I think rather than giving my thoughts,

I want to cry when I hear something like that. That's tragic. A cult of youth is an interesting phrase.

This is why just practical counsel for your elders who are listening when it comes particularly to music, whether it be the songs or the instruments, move very, very slowly in your work of reformation and church life.

Do it very thoughtfully. Do it explaining things to people. When we developed the songbook, we took lots of time to let the people become familiar with the hymns, explaining why we chose what we did and so on.

And that way you've got in our situation, we have the young people in the church who were familiar with the older hymns, but there are things, particularly by Keith and Kristen Getty, that are coming out that are excellent.

And so we were showing respect for our young people, and it's not the reason we did it, but we were showing respect for the young people and what they were interested in by saying, hey, we bring out of our storehouses things old and things new.

It's a biblical requirement as well, but then at the same time, your questioner is right.

That's tragic. It goes beyond worship, actually. We're required to preserve the peace and the purity and the unity of the church.

We're to work hard to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And that's certainly not what is being done in that situation.

So the man should speak to the pastor, but do it with a broken heart. And of course, I think one of the main points in the listeners' question and comment was that the elderly, the senior saint, is being really devalued and ignored.

A lot of these people are treasure troves of biblical wisdom and experience in the faith, senior,

I should say seasoned believers who have been through all kinds of things and had victory through them, and they are being viewed upon as burdens.

Yeah. Yeah. And that goes way beyond the issue of worship. I mean, that goes into the church.

On that matter of the youth thing, I just have to make this note on contemporary worship.

Margaret and I were, my wife and I, were away for a few Sundays with vacation and then different speakers here.

And so we took the opportunity to go to three different churches that had what was called contemporary worship.

One was within the Presbyterian Church in America, and that was fine. The other two, and I know both the pastors and love the pastors, and I don't want to be critical, but what it was really was more like the old evangelistic crusades.

I think this is what was getting at where it was 30 minutes of singing in which at least

I thought there was very little congregational participation. It was really more like a concert. And then the messages were given, which were fine and very well, extremely well communicated in both cases.

And then some announcements and thought, but it didn't have, it didn't have the elements of a worship service, a call to worship, a prayer of confession, a prayer of intercession, no sense of the church and the world.

And above all else, not that dialogue in which God speaks to his people through the minister and the people respond.

And I'm not questioning their sincerity, lovely, lovely people, and I love the pastors, but that's not really what we're talking about when we talk about worship.

You know, you brought up something, some excellent points in your sermon on this subject on sermon audio, which

I really enjoyed hearing. It was not only edifying to my soul, but very nostalgic hearing you preach again because it's been so long and I have such cherished memories of visiting the

Franklin Square OPC and hearing you preach and so on. But the fact that there are churches that really have a, for lack of a better phrase, they're one string banjos when it comes to worship because they want it to be all about joy, happiness, and uplifting music.

Where everyone, as far as the eye could see, has a beaming smile on their face, including the quote, quote, worship team.

And where you were bringing up some scenarios in life, how do you worship during the terminal illness and death of a child or a spouse or all these other things that would indicate that there are different moods, if you will, that are incorporated into worship?

It's not all just happiness. Yeah, there's where the psalms, and I want people to be careful at the last hour,

I said they don't hold to exclusive psalmody. Maybe I could say I hold to intensive psalmody, how's that?

Because the 150 psalms are, they're given in part to reflect the whole range of the emotions with which we come to God and worship.

And of course, some of those psalms are personal worship. You know, Psalm 119 is an example. Others are more corporate oriented.

There's some that are all life work. But anyway, you have a psalmist in Psalm 77 who is disconsolate, and yet he's still coming before God.

That doesn't mean that our worship should be disconsolate, but it recognizes those things. So that is another outgrowth of the regulative principle.

When I said in the last hour the regulative principle may be easy to state, it is a real challenge to work it out.

Not because it is hard, but because it's so vast.

Let me just give an example. And I think it is because it's as vivid as if it happened the other day, even though it was maybe 15 years ago.

But I remember on a Saturday, we had one of our very beloved elders had died.

He'd been ill, but it was obviously a shock when he died on the Saturday. And I don't know what

I'd prepared to preach that Lord's Day morning. But when people came in, there was a shock, there was a sadness.

And if worship were to be just kind of upbeat and happy, we wouldn't fit it.

See, worship is an outgrowth of the heart. It's not going to grow out of the heart. Now what did they do? They didn't make the worship mournful, because in Christ, and keep in mind our worship is always in Christ.

You go back to Christ in the scriptures. It is the sorrow of living in a fallen world, but the glory of the victory of Christ over death.

And the worship took on that cast, as I believe it was meant to do. That brings up a whole other area is the fact that the minister, who

I believe is the worship leader, he is constructing, he's putting together the elements of this particular worship service each week.

He does it as a pastor. He does it with love for the congregation, with knowledge of the congregation.

And in the same way he's preaching is going to be under edification of the people, so that whole worship service is meant to be that way.

We've had people comment on our worship services and say, well we can't get over how all the hymns fit together with what you preached on it.

And I said, yeah, that's the way it's supposed to be. So there's a lot of dimensions to all of this that go way beyond what items do you have in your liturgy.

And also the reverse problem, although it may be a minority problem today, but you and I know,

Pastor Bill, in our own circles and perhaps some other circles within fundamentalism or other places, you can walk into a church that they're singing beautiful hymns that are powerful and meaningful and biblical, but it is like a funeral dirge every time there being some in certain places.

It can be very depressing. You can see that the people are putting no effort in their worship at all.

They are going through a rote thing because it's just a part of their ritual and they look like they're falling asleep while they're singing.

So that is just as bad, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. I mean, see, that's a heterodoxy of the emotions.

We're meant to worship with our hearts. You know, these people worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Well, that's a huge thing. And here, if I could push a little booklet written by, the only thing

I have written, I think, is it's called Helps for Worship that's available through the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

People can order that really through the OPC .org website. But what I did is I began as a series of bulletin inserts, and I took all the different elements of worship, which ends up, when you go through them all, you break them down.

We're dealing with several dozen of them, not necessarily every week, but over the course of several months of worship, because you deal with the

Lord's Supper and Baptism and so on. But anyway, the Helps for Worship was designed to explain to people why we have these things and what it means.

And I began the booklet by saying something like, worship is not just theological, focused on God and His Word.

It's not just doxological, it's focused on praise.

It's not just Christological, focused on Christ. It's pedagogical. We're learning as we worship, and a minister,

I believe, without making worship pedantic, should be giving very bite -sized explanations of what this is in a worship service, or particularly what the meaning of a hymn is.

I remember I was in a wonderful worship service, and Buzz was in a

Presbyterian Church in America congregation, and we were singing the hymn that includes,

Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer. We were sitting next to some bedraggled fellow who would come in, and we were showing him where the hymns were.

I thought, what must this man think when he's singing, Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer?

That's pretty close to tongues in our culture. We've got to be sensitive, and they're even bridging the gap between traditional and contemporary worship.

I frankly loathe putting the two against one another. But one of the ways you can help with new

Christians is explaining why we do what we do. Again, without making the worship service a lecture, just to say in the prayer of intercession, maybe you wonder how our list comes here.

It grows out of the life of the Church. We remember even when we pray, we try to form our petitions by the

Word of God. So we're always lovingly teaching. I can't stand it. I don't care how Reformed the Church is.

When a minister just goes through the liturgy point by point, giving the impression at every point, and that's part of the message, we just want to get done on time.

Again, that to me is a kind of a heterodoxy. It's a liturgical heterodoxy. Part of my background is that I was raised in my very early years in the

Episcopal Church. Of course, it was very liturgical. We had the prayer book, and we would go through those.

What I don't remember is that we're really understanding. I could have been some of my age, but I'm sure some of it was because of the church

I was in. I did not understand a thing that was going on, but we would go through all these.

When people started talking to me about liturgical worship, my mind goes back to, well, yeah, how do you avoid something becoming just rote with no life like I remembered in the

Episcopal Church? Yeah, exactly right. You can read C .S. Lewis writing about the

Episcopal or Anglican liturgy. He has some interesting comments about the benefit of that liturgy if it's done properly.

That's true. We talk about the heart of the worshiper. We've got to talk about the heart of the one leading worship whose man, the real worship leader, is

Christ. In fact, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating insights into worship is in Hebrews 2, where you have

Christ who is Christ is spoken of, and he says in the midst of the assembly,

I will sing your praise, I'll confess your name, here am I, here am I and the children that you've given me.

Well, that's Christ, the great worship leader, working through the minister representing him.

I think if those dynamics were brought out more in any worship, particularly Reformed worship, we probably would begin bridging some of these gaps that we have right now.

I did visit a church recently that was very liturgical, and I was shocked that the people actually were enjoying it.

So I see that it doesn't have to be abused, but on the other hand, I think that there could be a tendency.

But I think the difference is, and this is the only reason I mentioned it was getting back to what you said, if the people know why they're doing it, it has a lot more meaning than just doing it.

Absolutely. Well, I see there I was going to bring up 1 Corinthians 14. Before we go, well, 1

Corinthians 14, we're to pray with our understanding, we're to sing with our understanding. So there's a biblical mandate actually in doing that.

Before, Buzz, I did want to make one comment about this 1 Corinthians 14, and yes, forbid to speak in tongues business, but what were your experiences when you were in your charismatic phase of your pilgrimage?

As far as worship or in general? As far as worship goes. Anything goes.

Now, I have to admit that I was in more state, I was, well, my time in the

Assemblies of God, I was, it was more like going to a Baptist church, like an independent Baptist church, only they believed in tongues.

I mean, it really was more reserved. It was much more reserved. In fact, even the matter of tongues, which, you know, obviously has been very controversial in the

Assemblies of God. We didn't have tongues in the regular service. You could hear it in some of the prayer meetings and things like that, but you know, it was, that was,

I was never in the, I refer to them as the peel -off -the -ceiling churches, you know. My pastor when

I was in Buffalo was a very dignified individual, it was a very large church, and actually, because of that, many of my experiences at that time were good.

But yeah, in worship, it was pretty much anything goes. If it's in the Bible, you can do it, no regard whatsoever for context or testament or anything.

Well, one of the things, and Chris, can I just develop this thing of 1

Corinthians 14? Yes, yes. Yeah. I didn't know if you had other questions from your callers. I want to urge your listeners, and particularly those who are pastors, not to be afraid of dealing with 1

Corinthians 14. We approach 1 Corinthians 14 from what we're against.

We're going to go in, we're going to go and hammer in tongues and say, hey, you know, there's no, the gift of prophecy, gift of tongues has ceased, and we can prove it, and you can prove that from the scriptures, but prophecy was the giving of the

Word of God by immediate revelation, and tongues was the bypassing of the mental mechanism so that what was spoken was the

Word of God in a foreign language, Paul says in verse 14 there, when I pray in a tongue, actually it's the

Spirit in me, the Holy Spirit in me prays, but my mind, he says, is unfruitful. In other words, it bypasses the mind.

So, you know, this is where we're going to go. And so then people say, well, don't forbid to speak in tongues, and we say, well, tongues doesn't apply anymore, but we missed the point in 1

Corinthians 14. Prophecy and tongues were the ways by which the

Word of God came in a time in which there was no completed scripture, and what

Paul is saying in there, he's giving a framework for how you understand tongues and prophecy.

He's saying prophecy is more valuable because it's in the language of the people, and he's saying the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets, so you don't, so, because obviously people would come along and say, thus saith the

Lord, when it really isn't, and then he says don't forbid to speak in tongues. What does that mean today? The Word of God is meant to hold sway in the assembly of God's people, now a completed scripture that is rightly interpreted, and I think an application of that is when

I'm preaching, I don't have a right to get up in the pulpit and say whatever I want about the scriptures.

I am bound. I love that one of your ads, Chris, the ad in the last break where Spurgeon is saying basically, you know, a man that won't read, a man is essentially an ignorant man.

I'm bound. I have to listen to what others have said. At the end of the day, I've got to make conclusions about what

I believe is right, and I stand before God for that, but I'm not permitted to be freewheeling in the preaching of the

Word, and the Word of God is meant to have sway in the congregation, so to me, rightly understood, 1

Corinthians 14 is not first a negative thing for us. It's very, very positive.

It opens up the primacy of the Word of God, especially in worship. And we do have a listener in Suffolk County, Long Island, Christopher, who says that although many people sinfully place aesthetics on an unbiblical and ridiculous level of importance when it comes to choosing a church where to be a member, don't you think aesthetics and talent do have a place when it comes to worshiping the

Lord with musical instruments and with voice? And thank you,

Christopher, and by the way, you're getting a free New American Standard Bible, and what immediately comes to mind, Pastor Bill, is there are churches that I have visited where they seem to think that they're not worshiping unless they have a musical instrument, and there are people who are horrible and not gifted at these instruments, and you're wondering why on earth are you playing that piano or trumpet or whatever it is?

I mean, it's like they think that they have to have instruments when they would be far better off if they don't have anybody gifted in those areas just to be singing a cappella congregational.

Yeah, teaching, that's a difficult pastoral question. Smaller churches, you don't have really gifted people, what do you do?

I mean, some people will pay a musician to come in to do that. Certainly, if you're going to do that, it's got to be someone who's a committed

Christian. There, you've got to be really, really careful, too, because if you employ somebody and you find out later that it's a homosexual or something, you're in trouble.

So, you know, that can open up a real kind of a Pandora's box, but the bottom line is your caller,

Chris, is absolutely right. Whatever you do, you do it all to the glory of God, and I know my predecessor in Franklin Square, I wasn't there at the time.

I would have been a little pup when he was there, but he, somewhere, I guess, back in the 1960s or whatever, 70s, the choir had diminished.

It was separate from the congregation, and he finally one day said, look, if we can't sing to the glory of God, we're not going to have a choir.

He disbanded it, so they shouldn't have a choir separate from the congregation anyway. But yeah, I mean, that's a very good point, and I think there, it's like anything else, you don't want the aesthetics of it to become the focus of the fact that the music was wonderful, that it was flawless, and that kind of thing.

I mean, I think of one church, it's got a lot of money, it's been a fortune, probably more than our whole church budget, just on their music, and it's wonderful, it's glorious.

You know, I don't know, is that really what we're supposed to leave with? But then, on the other hand, you don't want to have anything done in a shoddy way, and I think it's like sanctification.

It's progressive growth and our ability to worship the Lord, and we should recognize that.

You know, I think, is that the only question you have for me, caller? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they were saying.

I gotta get these three things in here. Oh, sure. I know you're gonna wrap things up soon, okay? I wouldn't, my conscience wouldn't permit me not to mention these things.

Worship always has to focus, number one, always has to focus on Christ. It's very interesting that Christ was heard for even his strong crying and tears.

He was heard because of his fear. That word is used in Hebrews 12.

And even our spirit of reverence is done in union with Christ, but it should be the

Scripture. If you're always focusing on Christ, the King, Christ the Redeemer, you know,

Christ the, you know, Christ the, Christ our helper. Yeah, okay, so always focus on Christ.

Never worship, never abandon thankfulness. That does the bloodstream, as it says, you know, with gratefulness.

But we worship God with reverence and with awe, and constantly let the way you worship and what you do in worship be governed by the

Word of God as it focuses on Christ. I'll tell people even in their personal worship, when they're reading

Scripture, let Christ kiss you with the kisses of his mouth. How are the comforts of the

Word of God as it focuses on Christ come to you in that? If we keep those things in mind, it's not going to answer these other questions, but we've got to keep these things in mind.

I remember years ago when I interviewed T. David Gordon on his book, Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns.

Outstanding. Yes. Outstanding, yeah. He brought up when a caller asked about, are any instruments acceptable in worship?

He brought up a humorous story, but I thought it made an excellent point through the illustration. If a precious loved one of yours had passed, and you are gathered in this solemn gathering at a funeral, and then a group of people came in and started playing kazoos, would you think it was out of place for the circumstances?

And he was basically saying that, you know, the different kinds of instruments do not produce sounds that are conducive to reverence in worship.

So if you could comment on that. Yeah, that's what I was getting at with the guitar, and I don't know the answer on this one.

I'm an agnostic when it comes to this issue with guitars in worship.

But yeah, that's a great point, and I think what T. David has done in that book, incidentally his book,

Why Johnny Can't Preach, is also excellent. He's communicated what is so important. No medium is neutral.

There's something different communicated by Bach, and something communicated differently by Woody Herman.

There you go, I mentioned a trumpeter for you. Thank you, thank you. So that is a very, very naive and even dangerous view to say that a medium is neutral.

All media influence the way we think, and so on. Well, Pastor Bill, I really want to make sure that in the three minutes that we have left...

He's got two more points. He wanted to get in quick. That's what I thought. I want to make sure that you unburden your heart and leave our listeners with everything that you most want etched on their hearts and minds before they leave the program today.

Are you talking to Buzz or me? You. Etched on their heart, I already gave it. Always focus on Christ.

Never abandon thankfulness. Constantly let the way you worship and what you do in worship be governed by the

Word of God as it focuses on Christ. I can't say it better than that. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners know that the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square has a website, opcli .com,

opcli .com, and I just want to ask you if there's any upcoming events that the congregation there is going to be involved in that our listeners should know about, other than, obviously, the weekly gathering of the saints there, but other things that are coming up?

Let me mention another website while you've got it, although this is in formation, and that is

Visit the Pastors Study. I've got to give you credit for that, Chris. You're the one who came up with that phrase,

Visit the Pastors, and you don't have to put an apostrophe in there, Visit the Pastors Study, or something close to that .org,

and that'll tell you a little bit about the radio program that I'll be doing, which in many ways is similar,

Chris, to what you've done, and I do want to commend you for what you're doing with the program. I think this is a great forum, and I even appreciated listening to your advertisements that you had in that break.

As far as things upcoming in church life, obviously, the Lord's Day worship, there's evangelistic things we do in the community, there's community life things that we have that people can find out about on the website that we do all the time.

I think right now, I just would ask your listeners to pray for wisdom for the elders and the pulpit committee as they seek to look for a pastor to replace me in Franklin Square.

It's a daunting thing to follow a man that's been in a place for 35 years, and we are concerned.

The OPC has been regarded as something of our, the OPC Franklin Square has been regarded as pretty much a flagship congregation in the

OPC, and there's a concern that it keep its commitments to preaching, to godly worship, to biblical church government, to church community life, and so forth.

And so please pray that God provide the right man to lead us in that regard. I definitely will, and it's been such a joy to have you back.

You are definitely someone I count among my dearest friends. You've been with me. Mutually, feelings, not just feeling,

Chris, the commitment's mutual. Amen. Praise the Lord for you and your work. Buzz, it's good to get to know you too. I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who wrote in with questions.

You're all getting a New American Standard Bible. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater savior than you are a sinner.

Thank you for listening, and we hope you join us tomorrow again with your own questions on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.