Regulative Principle Deuteronomy 12:32, What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add

thereto, nor diminish from it. God plainly states that the people are not to add to nor are they to take away from the commandments which He has given them. The context of this verse is extremely important. Look with me please to v.1 of this same chapter. Deuteronomy 12:1 These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. And then God goes on to give them instructions on worship. God has given clear instructions on how we are to conduct ourselves in worship. Now there are 2 opinions on worship that we need to look at. 1 opinion say: Whatever is not prohibited is permitted. So then, if God said Ye shall not then it is ok to do that. Please think about this. Whatever is not prohibited is permitted. That leaves a great deal of wiggly-room and liberty in Christian worship. However, the Bible does not support this idea. Please look again at Duet. 12:32. The Reformed tradition here insists on a stricter standard: a biblical command is needed for anything we would include in worship. Hence the popular formulation: "whatever is not commanded is forbidden." The Lutheran or Catholic counterpart would be "whatever is not forbidden is permitted.- John Frame Deuteronomy 12:32, What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. God gives a similar admonition to Joshua. Joshua 1:7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest. We followed the ordained means of God and we do not depart from what God has said. We ought to do in worship all & only what God has commanded. Every non-commanded act is then prohibited and disobedient. Can we make modifications to Gods prescribed methods? PerhapsBut we can NEVERNEVER- add to and introduce some new methodology. And even in making a modification we must be careful that the modification does not change the elemental intent of Gods command nor violate any Biblical command or principle. We call this the principle of accommodation. Let me try to give you an example of the regulative principle and accommodation. In the NT, the first person to Baptize people for the remission of sins. So then he has established for us a practice of worship. We know that this practice is intended for us because we see it commanded by Christ and repeated by the Apostles and the NT church. Lets think about this for a moment. John Baptized in the Jordan River. He is the first to Baptize so he establishes the pattern of worship. Jesus commanded that all who repent & believe be Baptized. Therefore every person

who repents and believes must be Baptized in the Jordan River right? Well, of course not. That is not practical and further more that is not what Jesus commanded. Jesus merely commands baptism (the dipping in water). For years there was debate regarding the Baptistery. Some had argued that John Baptized in a river therefore it was wrong to baptize in a tub. Well, again, Jesus simply says that we must baptize by dipping in water. We can make the accommodation of an indoor Baptistery because it fulfills the commands of God without violating the principles or taking away elementary from the command. However, we may not add to the observance of Baptism, nor change the form of baptism. Neither can we introduce another observance. For example, if I said, next Sunday we are all going to come into the church and we will each light our candle and offer a prayer to God before we begin preaching. We can do that because the Bible does not forbid the lighting of candles and prayer. Well the question is really about the sufficiency of scripture. That is the issue. Is scripture all that we need? Did God give us in His Word everything he intended to say or do we need to seek more information- and more revelation- elsewhere? Here is another thought. How about next Sunday, I get up and instead of preaching I will perform a dance. And while the music plays, I will act and dance out the sermon, ok? The Bible does not forbid the dancing out a sermon. This is where the regulative principles comes into play. The Regulative Principle is derived directly from the idea of Sola Scriptura (listen if you shut me out and do not listen to me, do not come to me a year from now and ask me about this because I will simply refer you back to this sermon. I am responsible to teach but you are responsible to listen). Sola Scriptura says scripture alone. It is the Words of God as recorded in the Bible and nothing else that will be our guide fort worship, service and our lives. What God prescribes we will do. We will not take away from His commands and we will not add to His commands. We have the Word of god. It is all that we need. We looked in our Sunday morning Bible study at the verse from 2 Tim. 3:16and 17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Please look closely at the last phrase in this verse. That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Perfect- thoroughly furnished- not requiring or needing anything else. This is the sufficiency of scripture. Also this is the doctrine of Sola Scriptura- that is Scripture Alone. This is a primary Biblical doctrine that came out of the reformation. The reformation realized that it was Scripture Alone- the Bible and nothing else, that must be the guide and the only guide for our lies and for our worship. The regulative principle is directly derived from the doctrine of Scripture Alone.

God did not write millions of volumes of books telling us what we could not do. Instead he only wrote one book- The Bible- telling us what we must do. His perfect commands are given in this book and they are not to be added to nor are they to be taken away from. But what if someone comes up with a good idea? Do we not have the freedom to use our wisdom if it works? I tell you that we do not and the reason why is because we cannot trust our own opinions. This is the very same thing when a person says I do not feel convicted. It might bother you but it does not bother me. It is not sin to me or it is not wrong to me because my conscience is not convicted about this. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? You see, we do not trust our ideas, our opinions and our beliefs. Because scripture tells us, that they cannot be trusted. If somebody would want to argue against this, then they arguing against the Word of God. They need to repent because they are in rebellion. Thoughts, feelings, emotions & opinions do not make a bit of difference. It comes down to does a person accept the Word of God as the authority for their life and for the Church or do they desire to set themselves up as an authority over God. Thus saith the Lord. That is the end of the matter. And usually people will say something like well, yeah, I believe the Bible and I understand what the Bible says, But. No! Stop. There is no but. A person must submit to scripture or be in rebellion there is no but. Remember back please to the sermon on Christ being our Savior and our Lord. If He is you savior He is also you Lord. If He is not your Lord then you are in sin and rebellion. Failure to submit to Gods Word is rebellion- regardless of what a person thinks, believes or feels. Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. We submit to the high and lofty commands of God because we understand that we are not able to think as he thinks and that our thoughts, feelings and opinions must conform to His revealed Word. To add to the Bible or to add something to God prescribed worship or to accept ones own convictions over what God says is the same as elevating oneself to being greater than God. IN essence what that person is saying is, that My opinions mean more than gods Word. God does not know what he is talking about. I decide what is right and what is wrong. What a person might think, what they might believe, what they might feel does not really matter. The only thing that makes any difference is what God said. Period. What about tradition? When there is a change or someone does something in the church that others are not used to then tradition often becomes the appeal. People might say Well, I aint used to that or this is the way we have always done it. This is a very often heard cry of the Baptist church. This is the way we have always done things and now that pastor wants to come in here and change things. Friends, traditions mean just as

much as feelings, emotions and thoughts when it comes to the Biblical commands of God- they mean nothing. And in fact, often times what we call tradition has only been a recent tradition of the church for the past 100- 200 years. Jesus addresses traditions in worship in Mark chapter 7. The Pharisees come to criticize the disciples over their violations of ceremonial tradition. Mark 7:7-8 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. Just because that is the way something has been done your entire life does not mean that it is the way that the church throughout history has done it nor does it mean that it is the Biblically prescribed method of God. We set aside tradition (just like thoughts, feelings and opinions) and we conform ourselves to the Word of the Lord and to nothing else. As Christians we should always be striving to be corrected and conformed and transformed by Gods Word in order that we can be more pleasing to Him. God cares nothing about the traditions of man. He desires obedience to His commands. Jesus said the traditions of man are vain- they are empty and useless. Col. 23 Paul talks about submitting to the ordinances of men and Paul calls this will worship. In other words, it is worshipping the way we want to and ignoring Gods commands. This is sin and rebellion. Please turn with me to Leviticus 10:1-2/ We cannot invent new means & methods. We cannot just do whatever we want to do and call it worship. We cannot do things- even if our purpose and motivations were good & well-meaningeven if they appear to be effective. Well do we not have freedom in Christ to do what we want? What is the big deal? Does God really care about all these little details? Here in Lev. 10 God makes His opinion clear about adding to prescribed worship. Look with me please in verse 1. Leviticus 10:1-2 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. We are not told what this strange fire was. God did not give the Levites a laundry list of all the wrong things to do and all the forbidden things. Rather, God gave them a prescribed method and Gods expectation was that they would follow His methodology. God did not leave them with the freedom to be creative or innovative but simple told them what He required for worship that would be pleasing to Him. When Nadab and Abihu added to or deviated from the prescribed method God killed them. I tell you the devil is not in the details that saying wrong. God is in

the details. And our methodology better be what God prescribes and nothing else or we too will face His fiery judgment. We also need to understand that our methodology is based upon our theology. What we believe about God dictates the things we do. This premise could also be stated in the reverse. What we do and how we do it, reveals what we believe about God. Theology dictates methodology & methodology reveals theology. The answer, I believe, is that the Lord himself must instruct us as he speaks to us in the Scriptures. It therefore follows that no one has a right to impose anything on us as something we ought to do in worshipwhether it be doctrine or practiceunless it is authorized by the Lord Jesus himself. Fred Malone We can only do what the Bible says and nothing else- when it comes to Worship and when it comes to sacraments. The Lord has ordained only 2 ordinances. The ordinances of Baptism and the Lords Supper are absolutely necessary and they cannot be avoided because God has given them to the church. Any church that would not perform these ordinances is not a church (in the Biblical sense of the Word). Furthermore, any church that would so pervert or change these ordinances so as to deny the very elemental purpose of to so change the liturgy that the purpose for which God has ordained them becomes skewed, then that church is not longer a church, in the Biblical sense of the Word. And finally, God has given only 2 ordinances and we are not to add to those ordinances. Whether it be the lighting of candles or sprinkling of the blood of a chicken or anything else added to the clear ordinances of God, it would be a perversion of Gods clear commands, would be a denial of the sufficiency of scripture and would in essence place those people who would do such on the dangerous grounds of establishing themselves as having the authority of God to decide what a church must do. We cannot take away from what Gods Word says. Neither can we add to Gods Word. And worship is the same way. God has prescribed to us how He desires to be worshipped. To take away from the prescribed methods of worship is rebellion and toad to Gods prescribed methods is also sin.