More On Worship From Peter Masters

Contemporary worship, however, is fully aesthetic in purpose and practice. God is the audience and the worshippers are performers. Skilful instrumentalism is part of the offering of worship. We repeat, that many evangelical churches have, in this way, gone back to Rome, but they have actually surpassed Rome both in intricacy and decibel count. At the dawn of world history Abel’s offering was accepted by the Lord because it was the very act God had commanded – a humble offering representing the need for atonement. Cain’s offering, however, was rejected, because it presented his own skill, labour and artistry. It was a ‘works’ offering. To parade before God our skills as an act of worship is surely nearer to the offering of Cain than that of Abel.

 Christians who have begun to savour new worship sometimes ask – ‘But what shall we do with our gifts if we cannot express them in worship?’ Here is the heart of the matter. Worship is not the exercise of our gifts, but the exercise of our hearts and minds. For many people this is the lost genius of worship, the principle which has disappeared from sight – that worship is not the presentation to God of skill or beauty, or of personal gifts, but the communication of the soul with God, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. Worship is not an aesthetic activity. Incidentally, the desire to ‘express our gifts’ in worship opens the door to elitism, because not many people have musical gifts to display. Where will it end? If someone’s ‘gift’ is to play the bagpipes, and another’s is to play cricket, are we to fit these into the service of worship also?*

*Masters, Peter (2012-01-11). Worship in the Melting Pot (Kindle Locations 134-145).  . Kindle Edition.

Sandy's Hooks Part Two

Here I wrote about my skepticism of the Sandy Hook skepticism. Now, I want to make an additional remark and give to you, (not written by me) ten characteristics of conspiracy theorists. Basically, a psychological profile of what conspiracy theorists are generally like.

For the argument: If the Sandy Hook incident was indeed a grand sham, it would be impossible to conduct, given the infinite amount of people that would have to partake of it. The conspiracy theorists argue that this was nothing more than a mini-Hollywood movie. Listen Charlie, this didn't take place in some remote area, with people whose names can be changed on a whim; this occurred in a REAL American school, in a REAL American city. The school would have had to explain to the teachers, families, staff, local police, local firefighters, and anyone else who lived anywhere near that area (or even farther given the sensitive law enforcement scenario) that such an incident would take place on school grounds, and that they would have to keep their mouths shut or else. The community who knew the children, the families who knew the families involved and the children, friends who knew the families (and possibly the friends who knew them), the co-workers of the families involved, the churches who knew the families involved, would all have to be in on it as well (or the original families would have had to create this master plan where funerals are non existent, they send the children to some Russian border school, and for some reason or another, people stop being people, and never confess to anyone). They would have to for some reason or another, lie to their friends and the world. And we believe that there hasn't been a peep out of anyone who actually knows them or the community?

Or, lets say that these people are indeed actors. Their families would have to keep this a secret. Their friends, families, co-workers, and all the people that they've ever met, would have to keep silent on who they really are. Furthermore, the community would also have to lie about the existence of these people, the names that were released, would have had to been made up. And oh, if they were indeed all actors, the community and surrounding communities would have had to be controlled with an iron fist, so no questions are ultimately asked, or visits are made.

This my friend, leads to a massive conspiracy, not known by only Obama and his cronies, but by hundreds if not thousands of individuals.


As for the characteristics, here they are:

(sorry about the funky background color of the text)

1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth: sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc.

2. Relentlessness. They will always go on and on about a conspiracy no matter how little evidence they have to go on or how much of what they have is simply discredited. (Moreover, as per 1. above, even if you listen to them ninety-eight times, the ninety-ninth time, when you say "no thanks", you'll be called a "sheep" again.) Additionally, they have no capacity for precis whatsoever. They go on and on at enormous length.

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it's “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It's always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.

-awretchsaved

Michael Horton On Worship

Another notable reformation of new covenant worship occurred with the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The gospel having been eclipsed by humanly devised doctrines and practices, the Reformers knew that the power was in the preaching of the gospel— not only in the sermon but in the entire service. The service, they recognized, was not primarily about human action but centered on divine action. God was not only central as an object of worship but also as a subject— an actor, who reconstitutes strangers and aliens as his own redeemed people each week.

 As at Pentecost, the encounter with God was seen by the Reformers to occur only because God had descended— in the incarnation, obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ, and in the descent of the Spirit. The apostles did not program a “revival” but were led by the direct commands of the ascended Christ, who gave them not only salvation as a free gift but also the gift of being made witnesses to Christ.

 The medieval church had accumulated many innovations in both doctrine and worship, and the average layperson knew little about the Scriptures. Worship services introduced morality plays, stirring music to excite a sense of mystery and majesty, and relied on images, “the ‘books’ for the unlearned,” as the saying went. The Heidelberg Catechism of the Reformed Churches thundered back, “No, we should not try to be wiser than God. He wants his people instructed by the living preaching of his Word— not by idols that cannot even talk.”[ 8] If the people were not up to speed in their biblical maturity, the answer was to get them up to speed, not to accommodate to a degenerating condition. Calvin called worship, as he called creation and redemption, “the marvelous theater” in which God descends to act before a watching world. As many writers have observed, this stands in contrast to much of worship today, whether it takes its cue from high culture or popular culture. It is that presence of the Spirit through his ordained means that makes the worship service a theater of grace in which Christ and all his benefits are communicated to those who were once “not a people”— living aimlessly without any definable plot to make sense of or give a sense of significance to their fragmented lives.

 As our age, commonly labeled “postmodern,” furthers and even celebrates this fragmentation and the loss of any stabilizing identity, our response must be neither one of mindless conservatism nor an equally mindless accommodation. Scottish minister P. T. Forsyth issued the following warning just after the turn of the twentieth century:

 "There are few dangers threatening the religious future more serious than the slow shallowing of the religious mind. . . . Our safety is in the deep. The lazy cry for simplicity is a great danger. It indicates a frame of mind which is only appalled at the great things of God, and a senility of faith which fears that which is high. Men complain that they are jaded and cannot rise to such matters. That may mean that the matters of the world absorb all the energies of the great side of the soul, that Divine things are no more than a comfort. And, if so, it means much for the future of religion, and much which is ominous. And the poverty of our worship amid its very refinements, its lack of solemnity . . . is the fatal index of the peril.[ 9]"

Part of this peril, of course, is due to a changing view of the church’s relationship to the world. It was once the conviction of most churches, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, that the church was a mother who cared for her children. Now, it is increasingly the case that churches across the denominational landscape regard themselves as department stores in a shopping mall that must sell a product to choice-obsessed consumers.

*Horton, Michael (2003-05-01). Better Way, A (pp. 15-16). Baker Book Group. Kindle Edition.

Sandy's Hooks

Have you been duped? Have we all been duped? Was the Sandy Hook 'massacre' a government created scenario in-order to take our guns? Well, that's what were being told here. 

I don't buy the idea that Obama and his cronies enjoy the idea of regular citizens owning semi-automatics. Nor did I buy Obama's fib about not wanting to take our guns away. He does. Sandy Hook is simply his justification for signing more non-sense laws that makes it harder for law abiding citizens to obtain them, we got that. 

The video above propagates the idea that the parents, families, and witnesses we've seen speak of the massacre are paid actors. It adds that the early media inconsistencies displays some sort of alternative story. One of the points it hits on is this idea that the families who lost little ones aren't grieving like...normal people who lose little ones grieve. My question is, how do normal people grieve when they lose children?

What does it look like when someone loses a little girl? The idea behind this is that people grieve the same. Hey man, when my pet turtle Rutherford died, I cried for weeks. I understand that it may have been tragic when he decided to end his life and flush himself down the toilet, but not all people grieve the same. Some people get numb, quiet and distant. Heck, someone might even believe they had something to do with the death because of that. But that's how some people grieve. Then you have the individual who doesn't shed a tear. As a matter of fact, they might even schedule a trip to the nearest Yankee game for next week! This doesn't mean they aren't hurting, it just means that not all people grieve the same.

How about the early inconsistencies of another suspect in the woods? What about the mix up with the guns? What about the suspect who was according to a witness in the front seat of the police car? Here's some news: We live in a world where news media is trying to dish out the news as fast as possible. Everyone wants to have the latest scoop. So, what happens is we get some report, run with it, and oops, we later have someone else contradict an earlier news report. This is all normal. But for the conspiracy theorist, it's all signs of a massive UFO cover up or something of the sort. 

It pains me to see Christians fall victims and spread these lies. We ought to be people of truth because Christ is truth (John 14:6). We ought to be sincere and careful people with what we say because we will be held accountable. 

Snopes has done a fine job of carefully refuting the falsehoods spewed. You can read that here.

-awretchsaved

Pascal Denault On Baptist Covenant Theology

For any parties interested, be it paedobaptist or credobaptist, Pascal Denault's new book The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology is a must read. It traces (from the sources) the Baptist roots in Covenant Theology and how it differs and where it differs from paedobaptist Covenant Theology.

It is a very much welcomed addition to the upswing in Baptist Covenant Theology. Far too long our paedobaptist brethren are uninformed concerning what historic Baptists, and what has come to be known as Reformed Baptists, have always believed in regards to Covenant Theology. Couple that with the profound ignorance of many that label themselves as Baptist or Reformed Baptists and I'm convinced this new book will help keep many young Baptists from abandoning ship, since they are so often tempted join the paedobaptist camp out of a lack of understanding Baptist Covenant Theology.

This book and Jeffery Johnson's The Fatal Flaw of the Theology Behind Infant Baptism will be the two books that I give to those interested in the matter.

Here is a small portion from Denault's book:

"By rejecting the notion of a Covenant of Grace under two administrations, the Baptists were in fact rejecting only half of this concept: they accepted, as we have previously seen, the notion of one single Covenant of Grace in both testaments, but the refused the idea of two administrations. For the Baptists, there was only one Covenant of Grace which was revealed from the Fall in a progressive way until its full revelation and conclusion in the New Covenant... If the Westminster federalism can be summarized in "one covenant under two administrations," that of the 1689 would be "one covenant revealed progressively and concluded formally under the New Covenant."

 The Baptists believed that no covenant preceding the New Covenant was the Covenant of Grace. Before the arrival of the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace was at the stage of promise. According to Benjamin Keach, the expression "the covenant of promise" that can be found in Ephesians 2.12 refers back to the Covenant of Grace. If we are talking about  a promise, this implies that it was not yet accomplished and was not yet in the form of a testament or a covenant. The Baptists believed the the New Covenant was the accomplishment of the promise, or in other words, the accomplishment of the Covenant of Grace. This doctrine is expressed in the following way in the 1689: "This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam [...] and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament." The New Testament brings the full revelation of the Covenant of Grace since the New Covenant is its accomplishment. The Baptists considered that the New Covenant and it alone was the Covenant of Grace.

 ...This distinction: [revealed/concluded] summarized the difference between the Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament and the Covenant of Grace in the New Testament. In the Old, it was revealed, in the New, it was concluded (fully revealed according to the expression of the 1689). John Owen comes to exactly the same understanding in his exegesis of Hebrews 8.6 where we read: "But in fact the ministry Jesus received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one, since the New Covenant is established on better promises." *

*Pascal Denault, The Distinctiveness of  Baptist Covenant Theology (Birmingham, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2013), pp. 61, 63, 64.

Peter Masters On The Importance Of Reverence For God

 No one would deny that reverence is due to Almighty God by right. But how can He be properly acknowledged and worshipped if the worshipper has replaced Him with a god of his own making – a much smaller god? Today many evangelical Christians have remodelled God, turning Him into a being only a bit higher than themselves. He is no longer the infinite, almighty, holy God, Who sees and searches every heart. He is merely a chum or pal sharing our smallness and triviality, and enjoying our entertainment-based culture. He is no longer to be feared; no longer to be given reverence.

 With this new God, Moses would not need to remove the shoes from his feet, nor the apostle John fall at His feet as dead. This revised God does not mind how we worship Him, and so we need have no inhibitions or qualms about anything we do in His presence. But to change God is to deny Him and to insult Him. So where is reverence today?

 Where is the God of Elijah? Where is Old Testament Jehovah? Where is the mighty God so respectfully addressed in the recorded prayers of the New Testament? Amazingly, this glorious God is not wanted, even by many who believe His Word and seek His salvation. Reverence has become distasteful. It has been relegated to the debris of a cast-off former culture. ‘Give us a God,’ we now cry, ‘on our level.’

 This chapter is about the necessity of reverence for God and how it brings great benefits and blessings to worshippers. Hebrews 12.28-29 provides a specially challenging verse for the present day: ‘Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.’ ‘Reverence’ here literally means – with downcast eyes or great humility. ‘Fear’ means caution, or the reverence of holy fear. The Lord Jesus Himself, when living out for us a life of perfect righteousness, maintained the deepest reverence toward the Father, the Bible telling us that His prayers were heard because He ‘feared’, using the same Greek term for caution or reverence (Hebrews 5.7). The term ‘fear’, indicating reverential fear, appears often in the New Testament. Cornelius of Caesarea, visited by Peter, was acknowledged by all to be one who ‘feared’ God. His reverence for God was conspicuous. When preaching at Antioch in Pisidia, Paul appealed twice to those that ‘feared’ God, using the same reverential fear term. They would be the people who truly received the Word. ‘Fear God!’ wrote Peter, using the same term (1 Peter 2.17). ‘Fear God!’ said the angel of the preaching of the everlasting Gospel in Revelation, using the same term, indicating that the ultimate objective of the Gospel is to bring men and women not just to salvation, but to reverence (Revelation 14.7).

 The victorious people of God sang, ‘Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?’ using the same reverential fear term (Revelation 15.4). And the voice from the throne of God commanded, ‘Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great’ (Revelation 19.5).

...The root of all our problems today as evangelical Christians is the collapse of such reverence. With the new style of worship, all carefulness in God’s presence and all deep respect for Him has gone, and yet this is the ultimate purpose of salvation – to revere and obey Him. Paul therefore says, ‘Exercise yourself unto reverence.’ Other spiritual graces cannot flourish without this foundation.

...Reverence is stated to be immensely significant and beneficial in the Christian life, but it must begin with worship. If worship is stripped of reverence, then reverence will be stunted in all other aspects of Christian living. What begins in worship, spreads into the whole Christian life. If worship is more like a performance, with showing off, imitation of the world, sensation-seeking, much noise, and everything for my pleasure, then reverence will not be found in any other department of life. How cruel it is, then, for churches to abandon reverent worship! The members will be seriously hurt and disadvantaged for their personal spiritual lives.

...Take our understanding of the Bible. Reverence for God produces humility and fear of offending Him in the handling of the Bible. We take the opposite approach of the fable-teachers and the charismatic teachers just referred to. ‘This is God’s sacred Word,’ we say to ourselves. ‘I must not rush through it. I must open my heart day by day to what God is saying. I must make sure I get it right, and if I don’t understand it, I must consult a reliable book or person for help. I must learn and obey.’ Reverence leads to conscientiousness with Scripture, and this in turn leads to right understanding. Reverence certainly helps us not to come to hasty and superficial conclusions. It safeguards us against many errors. This attitude of reverence and care is seen perfectly in the stance of the apostle Peter, recorded in 2 Peter 1.19-21: ‘We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’

 The person with reverence for the Lord and for His Word is concerned to get things right. The preacher always checks his work with conscientious care. If he thinks he sees in the text something he has not seen before, he worries lest his imagination should have led him astray, and checks his understanding more carefully. Reverence keeps him from falling into foolish conclusions and errors. Reverence checks his step and humbles his self-confidence. What a difference reverence makes! But if it is omitted from worship, it will not be found in handling the Bible. The essential exercising of reverence begins in worship. The house of God is the best gymnasium.*

*Masters, Peter (2012-01-11). Worship in the Melting Pot (Kindle Locations 1136-1150, 1150-1158, 1178-1180, 1225-1230, 1231-1238, 1238-1244, ).  . Kindle Edition.

Michael Barrett On Worship

If there is any overriding biblical truth that must circumscribe every worship practice, it is that worship is all about God and not about us. The inspired Preacher issues an imperative for worship that sums up our duty and should protect us from unduly elevating self and personal preference.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:1–2)

God is in heaven, and we are on earth. But amazingly while we are on the earth, the Lord invites us into His presence. Being in the presence of God is a privilege that ought to overwhelm us and create within us a sense of caution and reverent submission. “Keeping the foot” simply means to guard the steps, to be careful about conduct, to exercise personal restraint. As Moses removed his shoes before the burning bush and Joshua his before the Captain of the Lord’s host, so must every worshipper recognize that the place of worship is a holy place. As we become increasingly conscious that biblical worship brings us into the holy presence of God, we must become increasingly cautious that we do nothing to offend that holy presence.

How we act in God’s presence is important. David’s initial encounter with the Ark of the Covenant—the visible token of God’s presence—remains a vivid lesson of this sobering fact (2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13). David, the man after God’s own heart, planned to retrieve the Ark from Kirjath-jearim, where it had been exiled for over fifty years, and to restore it to its deserved place of preeminence. Notwithstanding his concern for God’s honor and glory, his fervent zeal succumbed to carelessness with tragic consequence. Although his desire was good and his motive was pure, his disregard of God’s order displeased the Lord he thought he was honoring. It is not sufficient to claim a worthy purpose and proper spirit without conforming as well to the clear mandates of God’s word. Many Christians desire the right things, but are lax in the modes used to achieve those desires. Methods of worship and service do indeed matter: Uzzah’s corpse testifies to that.

Happily, David learned the lesson, and his second attempt to exalt the Lord’s presence was “according to the word of the Lord” (1 Chronicles 15:15). The results were wonderfully different. My guess is that the lesson David learned early in his reign contributed at least in part to his becoming the sweet psalmist, whose inspired songs set the standard and provided so many patterns for proper worship. Significantly, one of the most sublime imperatives to worship that he issued links the logic and manner of worship: “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2). The logic of worship is simply that God deserves it. Attention belongs to all His infinite assets; His infinite worth is the mandate for worship. Bowing down before the Lord in the beauty of holiness is the manner in which worship must occur. The expression the beauty of holiness is certainly suggestive. Although its exact meaning can be debated, the sense differs little whether the word beauty is an abstract concept or a concrete thing. Whether we are to worship with holy splendor or to worship dressed in the holy attire befitting priests, it is obvious that behavior and appearance in the place of worship is to be holy, distinct from the normal and mundane. At the very least, bringing the world into the holy place defies what worship is all about. To recognize the Lord’s infinitely august person, His infinitely attractive perfections, and His infinitely awesome works demands that the finite creature bow submissively. Acceptable worship flows from the true knowledge of God and follows His revealed will. Worship is holy service rendered to the Lord, not an occasion adapted to the likes and dislikes of would-be worshippers.

Not only must outward practices of worship follow the instruction of Scripture, but so must the attitude of the worshipper conform to God’s demands. The Lord Jesus Himself highlighted this mandate when He unveiled the formula for worship during His encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Like so many before and since, she defined worship externally in terms of place. In essence, she said, “We do it here—they do it there; we’re right—they’re wrong.” In a profoundly simple yet weighty response, Christ explained, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). As simple as this statement is, it has been open to various interpretations. Although some argue that “spirit” refers to the Holy Spirit and that “spirit and truth” are independent elements of worship procedure, I would suggest that the reference is to man’s spirit and that spirit and truth should be united to designate one essential thought. The Scripture makes it abundantly clear that worship must be both spiritual and according to truth, but Christ is teaching here that worship’s sum and substance is internal, not external. Most likely the expression in spirit and in truth is a literary device called hendiadys. Literally meaning “one through two,” this figure occurs when two words connected by the conjunction “and” refer to one principal idea. Although the English translation repeats the preposition before both words, it actually occurs only once in the Greek text (in spirit and truth). Taken together, the words imply the necessity of worshipping with a truthful spirit. In other words, biblical worship is directed to God with a sincere heart. Both elements are essential. Insincere worship directed to God is unacceptable. Sincere worship directed to any other than God is unacceptable. The “beauty of holiness” factor, however, means that even sincere worship directed to God in the wrong way is unacceptable.*

*Barrett, M. P. V. (2006). The Beauty of Holiness: A Guide to Biblical Worship (3–6). Greenville, South Carolina; Belfast, Northern Ireland: Ambassador International.