Okay,
Should Churches Observe Holy Days?
next question is, should churches observe Holy Days? So why do Reformed Baptist churches not observe Holy Days? Holidays, like Good Friday, Christmas Day, Prayer Day, Thanksgiving, and you could put a whole list there with a church service on that day. Yeah, well,
The Lord's Day as the One Holy Day
we do observe a holy day. It's every Sunday. We call it the Lord's Day or the Christian Sabbath. Our confession has, I think, a very fine chapter on that in chapter 22, which is of religious worship and the Sabbath day.
But recognize that chapter 22 follows chapter 21 and chapter 21 deals with Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. And so when these men wrote the confession, they had different I don't want to say targets, different opponents perhaps would be a better word that they had to answer and guard against. On the one hand, you have the civil state. If the civil state was Roman Catholic or if it was Anglican, then there would be certain things thrust on worshipers by the state. but also they had religious tyranny on the other hand, Roman Catholics, Anglicanism.
So, in our confession it says,
Liberty of Conscience and the Confession
God alone is Lord of the conscience and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to his word or not contained in it. So, the argument's pretty simple.
No Command for Traditional Holy Days
God never commanded us to have a Good Friday service. He never commanded us to have a Christmas service. He never commanded those holy days of obligation. He has, however, commanded Lord's Day worship with the people of God in the house of God.
So, it's a liberty of conscience issue and it does do disservice to people when we present as law. preferences or things that have arrived or sort of evolved in the life of the church. And just kind of anecdotally, as people have come into our churches, at least recognized in my church, they have an issue with the Lord's Day and the Sabbath and the fourth commandment, but they're always curious to know why we don't have a good Friday or a Christmas Eve because they do have, you know, good intentions. They want you know, people typically come during those times of year and they want some sort of evangelism, but, you know, it's good to then teach them about the importance of the Lord's day and what that means and the blessing that that is. And one thing I have often joked about with my people is I've said, we will have perhaps an evangelistic service when the evening service is just as well as attended as the morning service, because I think it was Sinclair Ferguson who said that the word of God is measured by the evening service and the attendance that is there, not so much by whether you come on Christmas or whether you come to Good Friday.
And I've joked with the people, I've said, I think that will be when pigs fly. And I do hope pigs do fly so that more people come in the evening and appreciate the full Lord's day. And as far as a Good Friday service in particular,
Lord's Supper and Lord's Day Sufficiency
we are commanded to remember the Lord's death at the Lord's Supper, which again, depending on what church you're in, it could be weekly, it could be monthly. So, in terms of a specific time out of the year that we're called to reflect upon the death of our Savior, it's not Good Friday. And then, of course, every Sunday would be an Easter Sunday, a Resurrection Sunday. I mean, when the people of God, you know, walk into the house of God, there is that tacit confession that He is risen.
He is Lord. We're here to worship the living and true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that's not to say that during those times of year, we don't on the Lord's day, focus on some of those subjects. Like typically I do a Christmas or Advent series or whatnot, but it's always on the Lord's day.
And as we gather for worship on that day, that's usually when we can meditate on those things and consider them. But as Pastor Butler said, we meditate on those things every Lord's day and we get to celebrate the new creation and being found in Christ on that day. So it is... It's important to recognize that and appreciate what the Lord's Day is.
And I know I've appreciated it more and more. And some of those extra holidays became less and less important as I've appreciate the Lord's Day. Yeah, we come with a lot of traditions and family traditions, church traditions, and we get attached to those. Some people say, well, it's not commanded to do these days, but it's not commanded not to do them.
There's nothing wrong with it, and it's always good to go to church. But to your point, it's still binding consciences and liberty, right? Well, I think that, you know,
Special Occasions vs. Obligated Observance
there are those occasional seasons where we can gather that aren't specifically Lord's Days. So, in chapter 22, paragraph 5, it says toward the end, and thanksgivings upon special occasions ought to be used in a holy and religious manner. So, it's not, the argument isn't, no, we can't gather the church together any other time. But when we obligate the worshipper to a tradition, we've overstepped our boundaries as ecclesiastical officers.
So,
The Regulative Principle of Worship
we enforce what Scripture teaches relative to the worship of God. We call that in the Reformed tradition, the regulative principle of worship. So, we don't add things, we don't take things away, we seek to do what God's Word says. And yeah, if we say we're having a Christmas service, I mean, you know, people say, well, what's wrong with that?
Well, for somebody that perhaps has come out of Roman Catholicism and, you know, there's a lot of bondage there, it is to then bind that person's conscience in a way that isn't conducive to the glory of God. Pete Excellent.