[0:00] Billy Joe said, Jamie, would you come and do a talk about church music? And I thought, yeah, that sounds really cool. But then when you jump into any topic, you realize you could just keep researching and learning! for such a long time. So this has been a real joy for me. For me as a musician, there was something mysterious and something powerful about music when I was a non-believer. Why did I cry when I heard certain songs? I mean, that's a question. Why do you feel that way when you hear certain songs? Why do you feel like rejoicing and you're not even a believer? Well, it's because music has sort of a mysterious quality and sometimes we don't even, we don't really understand it.
[0:45] So it's given to us for pleasure, of course. It's given to us for utility. You can watch, the advertisers know that. If they want you to buy a product, they don't write kind of a sad song. It's always real peppy and wow, look at that floor cleaner. And, right? But there's an important thing that we have to know that psychologically music can really make you do things you don't understand. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Most importantly, this is God's design for music. He meant for us to worship. Here's an interesting quote by, when I was in school, one of my heroes was Leonard Bernstein because the Berlin wall had just fallen. And Leonard Bernstein did a concert where it was all musicians from East and West Berlin coming together to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He said this, and that was very inspirational. And here's what he said, music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable. So you might say, well, music is so abstract. And I don't really understand these things that it's talking about or that it's communicating. Augustine actually said that music is actually more concrete than speech, which is kind of an interesting way to look at it. But here's a person who's kind of, well, anyway, his family has been in the news lately. This mysterious power. I think this is an interesting quote because sometimes the mistrust of music may lead us to this viewpoint. Music is like a drug.
[2:34] Whoever acquires the habit can no longer devote himself to important activities. We must completely eliminate it. I talk, Komeni. So that is, there's a real distrust of music because it brings about this mysterious part that sometimes we don't understand. But I'm so thankful that as a Christian people that we are a singing people. So then my answer and Billy Joe kind of challenged me with this, why do we sing? And this, check this out, I'm an instrumentalist and I'm saying this. So I don't spend my life singing. But when I was taught music, my teacher would always tell me, make sure you're playing music like you're singing it through your horn. So there's something about singing that's really important. The first reason I think, and I'm going to give you, I think, four different reasons why we should sing and why we should sing to the Lord.
[3:36] But I'm, as I do this, I'm going to go through the history of the Bible very quickly. I mean, we're not going to go very in depth, but we're going to look at what the Bible says about different kinds of singing.
[3:50] So the first reason, singing and music is written into the history of the Bible, starting from creation. Music itself actually comes from creation. And I'm going to go off my ear. If I play this trumpet, there is something called the overtone series. When I strike a piano string, when I strike the lowest string on the piano, it'll resound, a note will resound. That's actually made up of hundreds of individual notes. You just don't realize it. The trumpet is the same way. And when I play the trumpet, you know, I have valves, right? But I don't really need valves to play notes. I can play all sorts of different notes on one set of tubing.
[4:43] So watch this. I'm not even going to use my hands. Now, Nolan will appreciate that because that's the world we live in, right? That's... And if you've ever heard a bugle call, bugles don't have valves either.
[5:10] That's something that's really recognizable to all of us. That is nature and creation has set those notes in stone. You cannot change them. If you're in China and you're playing music, you have to use those notes.
[5:27] Okay? Now, different nations have done that differently. So just realize that this is coming just like everything else we've talked about. We've talked about different issues here. Discipleship. Family. Where does family come? Family comes from creation.
[5:47] Men and women. That comes from creation. Well, so does music. Okay? One of the first songs in the Bible, and Billy Joe, you lent me that book that's about worship, and it's called To the Glory of God.
[6:03] And he... Daniel Block, I think was his name, right? He said that the first love song comes out... comes about in Genesis 2. Well, who is this about?
[6:17] This is about Eve. Oh, I've just had animals. This is so much better to have Eve. This one finally is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
[6:28] This one shall be called woman because this one was taken out of man. Now, when we think about Jesus Christ coming later and us being the bride of Christ, love songs are just so important.
[6:40] And we'll see that theme coming through later in the Bible. Genesis 4.21. There's the invention of musical instruments. And guess where musical instruments appear?
[6:52] They appear when agriculture appears. They come about maybe in the generation right before metal working comes about. So musical instruments are in there pretty early.
[7:05] Okay, here's also what the different kinds of music the Bible talks about. Work, work songs. Weddings, feasts, love songs. Song of songs, right?
[7:19] Decadent songs, which we'll get to in a minute. Futility songs. How many of you have read Ecclesiastes? It's... we can think it's a downer, but there's really, really a purpose in there, isn't there?
[7:33] Military songs. The Book of the Wars of Yahweh. Man, that's a cool one. And this leads me to the shofar, which I'm going to play a little bit later for you.
[7:45] Also, laments. David laments Saul and Jonathan's death. So all sorts of different kinds of themes. And the poetry was pretty important.
[7:58] So let's go through... we're going to go through some of the different kind of songs. We're going to look at the Psalms. We're going to talk about what was music like in the temple. And that's kind of an interesting topic.
[8:11] And then we'll go to the New Testament just very briefly. So music, like everything else, has become corrupted by the fall. So when Adam was created, Adam and Eve were created, what did Adam do?
[8:26] He started farming. He started ordering the animals and naming them. Well, when we have music, oh, hey, that thing makes a sound. That's so cool.
[8:39] So then what we do is just like everything else, we organize it. And oh, these sounds can be beautiful. So we can use this for a purpose. But music, just like everything else, was corrupted by the fall.
[8:53] So here's Amos 6, 4 through 5. And I'm going to say there are really two types of ways that music changed when the fall happened.
[9:05] When Adam sinned. Amos 6, 4 through 5. This is music of decadent luxury. Do we have any of that? Do you think? Yeah, we do. So it goes back all the way to the Old Testament, right?
[9:20] Those who lay down on beds of ivory and sprawl on their couches and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who improvise to the sound of the harp, and like David have composed songs for themselves, who drink wine from sacrificial bowls, while they anoint themselves with the first pick of the oils.
[9:42] Yet they have not grieved over the destruction of Joseph. So here we have a really great example of, okay, let's look at what they're doing. Oh, they're composing songs for themselves, just like David.
[9:56] But they're composing songs for themselves. And they're enjoying luxury and pleasure. So this is one of the ways that music went wrong. Now, you might think, what am I saying? Am I saying that, oh, we can't ever take pleasure in music?
[10:14] I'm not saying that. But I'm saying in the hierarchy of as Christians in our Christian life, how can we use music? We use it for the glory of God. There are all sorts of other things that we could go into there.
[10:27] They're anointing themselves with the pick of oil. They're drinking wine from sacrificial bowls, right? So many different things in there. So here's the second kind of music. And it's what I call idolatrous music.
[10:43] So in the Bible, God is very clear in the law about worshiping him and worshiping him alone. So here's Exodus 32, 17 through 20.
[10:54] If you remember this, this is where the Israelites, they've escaped from. God has delivered them from Pharaoh, from Egypt. And they're going through the desert.
[11:07] And they're being led by God and being provided for. And they get to Mount Sinai. And here's where God is going to be giving them the law, right?
[11:20] So Moses goes up on Mount Sinai, gets the law. Joshua went with him. And I had forgotten that. But Joshua, his helper, actually went with him.
[11:31] And while he's away, what did the people do? They say, Aaron, we don't know where Moses has gone. Can you please fashion an idol for us so that we can worship it?
[11:45] So they do that. And then they start having a wild party and dancing around the idol. So here's the scripture. Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted.
[11:58] And he said to Moses, there's sound of war in the camp. But he said, it's not the sound of the cry of triumph, nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing I hear.
[12:10] Now it happened as soon as Moses came near the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses' anger burned. And he threw the tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain.
[12:23] Then he took the calf which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, and scattered it over the surface of the water, and made the sons of Israel drink it.
[12:35] So that's my second example of the way music has fallen. It's idolatrous. It's not meant to worship God, but worship another God. You can also see that in the revelry of the priests in 1 Kings 18, where Elijah and God have their famous showdown with the priests of Baal.
[12:58] You can see that same kind of dynamic there. So those are the two ways that we can depart. So my question would be, can some of that enter into church music?
[13:11] Yeah, I do believe that we can. Now we have Christian liberty, which is so great. We have Christian liberty, but that liberty is constrained by the fact that we don't want people to stumble over certain kinds of music.
[13:25] So what are the different kinds of songs and types of songs in the Bible? First one is actually the Hebrew word for song. And this would be, you notice you have the song of the sea, if you look in your Bible.
[13:38] Or the song of Moses or the song of Mary. These were songs meant to give thanksgiving to God for historical accounts. We see the song of the sea.
[13:49] And I'm going to point a couple things out because this is important. This really affected the history of music and actually church music in general. Let's read this.
[14:00] So the song of the sea. This is Exodus, I believe, 15. Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to Yahweh and said, I will sing to Yahweh for he is highly exalted.
[14:16] The horse and its rider he is hurled into the sea. Remember that because that's a sort of a couplet there. Yahweh is my strength and my song and he has become my salvation.
[14:28] This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God and I will extol him. Yahweh is a warrior. Yahweh is his name. You notice there's a little bit of repetition in there.
[14:40] That's very musical. Musicians like repetition because then we can go back and we can play that melody again or sing that melody again. But look at what happens with this.
[14:51] What's at the end of this? I'm going to go to the end of the chapter. And Miriam, the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the tambourine in her hand and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing.
[15:03] And Miriam answered them, sing to Yahweh for he is highly exalted. The horse and his rider he is hurled into the sea. So when I look at that and look at some of the Psalms, it's musical form.
[15:17] What did we have? We started out with, I will sing to Yahweh for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he is hurled into the sea.
[15:30] And then it's developed that whole history of how that happened. And then at the end, oh, there's a tambourine, right? And they're dancing, they're rejoicing, right?
[15:41] And then at the end, sing to Yahweh for he is highly exalted. The horse and his rider he is hurled into the sea. So there's history. And this is the way that this history probably was handed down, right?
[15:56] It was written down. But how did the people learn this? They didn't probably learn by picking up a book or looking on iPhones. They actually heard it sung in their family gatherings.
[16:09] So here's music. Here's reason number two that music unites the people of God. That's reason number two.
[16:20] That's another reason why we sing. Now, choir, we were up here this morning. And it's really fun because we can unify around what we're doing.
[16:32] And it's a real blessing to be up here. Making music together actually brings people together. And it doesn't really matter what kind of music it is sometimes.
[16:43] Now, as the people of God, we have the most important thing bringing us together. And you find this in, I didn't realize this, in the Old Testament, Israel's national anthem was Deuteronomy 32.
[16:57] And this is where Moses is at the end of his life. And he's on the mountain. He's looking into the Promised Land. He knows he can't go in. But he knows that this next generation is going to go in.
[17:09] This is how this goes. Remember the ancient days. Consider the years from generation to generation. Ask your father and he will declare to you your elders and they will speak to you.
[17:24] When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel.
[17:36] For Yahweh's portion is his people. Yahweh is the allotment of his inheritance. That's great. That's a great national anthem.
[17:47] Now, I started thinking about our national anthem. What's our national anthem? Was it rooted in history? Anybody know what that is?
[17:58] What was that? What war was it? Yeah, War of 1812. And Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to this, was looking, I believe, from a ship.
[18:11] And he was looking at Fort Monroe. Did I get that right, Ivan? Being bombarded. And he was wondering, will our flag still be there in the morning? And when he woke up, it was. But did you?
[18:22] We're going to get to do this now. You're going to get to sing the fourth verse of our national anthem. Let me give you your note. Okay, here we go.
[18:40] Now, we don't sing this at baseball games, but I think maybe we should. We should start doing that. Let's sing this.
[18:51] Here we go. One, two. Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand between their loved home and the war's desolation.
[19:11] Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land. Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
[19:30] Then conquer we must when our cause it is just. Can this be our motto?
[19:43] In God is our trust. And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave.
[19:59] O'er the land of the free. O'er the home of the brave.
[20:12] Good job. You pass. You pass. You pass. You're mourning. Good. A little bit different. What's different? What do we not get from the first verse that we get from that?
[20:24] What sorts of things stand? Rick? In God is our trust. In God is our trust. Mm-hmm. Anything else? That's the big one, Rick. You pretty much nailed it. Good job. Yeah, we don't. We get a real picture here.
[20:47] So we have the history of what's happening. And you think about what happens in our national anthem where our mind goes to the great patriots that have died for our country.
[21:00] Well, Moses was doing the same thing. So music brings people of God together, uniting the nation across generations. This is one thing that he's doing here.
[21:11] He's passing on the traditions and the charge to be faithful to God. Okay. A couple other things. Now going through more of the different kinds of music.
[21:24] This is, you have praise songs in the Bible, right? Halal is, means to be a song of praise to someone for something, some good quality.
[21:38] But here in the Bible, it's for who God is. Hymns. We do have hymns. Actually, the Psalms were sort of hymns. And, but we treat the Psalms as being a little bit different than hymns now.
[21:52] And we'll get to that in a bit. But hymns are more communal in property. So meant to be sung together. Songs of thanksgiving where crises become, or laments become praise.
[22:07] And then there's the word for musical instruments, which we'll see in a little bit. Okay. The third reason that we sang, you can see what two things were bouncing off each other here.
[22:23] The third reason that we sang, you know, is that beauty and truth. In worship, beauty is joined to and controlled by truth. And amplifies the truth of scripture to help it speak to our hearts as a church.
[22:39] It's an amazing thing. So here's the balance we make. We have to make. The experience of music, as I said before, can cloud and confuse our judgment.
[22:50] One of the ways that Satan, I believe, works in the arts and has done in literature, art, media, film, music, is that it's very attractive to ignore truth.
[23:07] Because we appreciate the beauty of something. So we're more apt to accept falsehoods because something is aesthetically pleasing. That means pleasing because it's beautiful. I think we all know that if we're really honest with ourselves.
[23:21] Now, that experience of music, we don't want to completely throw it out. Because the truth of scripture can be so jealously guarded that we mistrust the emotional nature of music.
[23:33] In the Reformation, some people went way overboard. And they got rid of everything beautiful in their church. They would destroy beautiful artwork meant to draw our minds to God.
[23:47] We weren't necessarily worshiping them. But they mistrusted it so much that we can't totally throw that out. So we want the right balance. And here's the Psalms are great because it starts working in different parts of what makes music so wonderful.
[24:07] Here's what we're going to do. The Psalms really go right to the heart of the matter. They're beautiful. They were sung. And we're praising him for his character and attributes.
[24:21] And many of them were meant to be sung antiphonally. How many of you know what that word is? Antiphonally. Antiphonally means I'm going to, well, responsively.
[24:33] I guess that's a better word. I'm going to do this. We're going to sing all, we're going to say these Psalms here. And I'm going to say one line and you're going to finish it.
[24:44] Let's start with this one. Psalm 145. God being praised for his majesty. Psalm 145. I'll start, you finish. Great is Yahweh and highly to be praised. Great is to be praised.
[24:58] Good, good. I can tell you didn't grow up Lutheran like I did. So when we do this, let's really try to get it together and say it together. Here we go. So this is about his grace.
[25:09] Psalm 107. Oh, give thanks to Yahweh for he is good. For his love and kindness, you're his prayer. Yeah, getting better. Good. His kingship.
[25:20] Psalm 99. Enter his gates with thanksgiving. And his courts with praise. That's a good one, right? I love that one. Psalm 33. His creation. By the word of Yahweh, the heavens were made.
[25:34] And that prayer, he's not all that good. Good. There's sort of a rhythm in it, isn't it? I always, I wish I could speak Hebrew and I'd know more about what that rhythm is supposed to be.
[25:46] Giving Israel the promised land. Psalm 105. He has remembered his covenant forever. The word which he has given for thousands of generations. The judgment of his enemies.
[25:57] Psalm 75. And all the horns of the wicked I will cut off. For the horns of the righteous will be raised up. His sovereignty.
[26:08] Psalm 92. But you have raised up my horn like that of the wild ox. I have raised the horns of the righteous. Good. Good.
[26:19] Can you see how these psalms, I think most of them have like couplets in them that make sense to go back and forth. And they were probably sung over many years of history.
[26:32] And, but here's the important part I put up there. Psalms keep our attention squarely focused on who? On the Lord, right?
[26:43] And his work. It kind of, and I don't want to say it does this completely. It sort of minimizes even the parts where David is going through some really tough times. He laments.
[26:54] His heart is broken. He's being chased. His life is in danger. He loses his greatest friends, right? And King Saul is killed.
[27:06] He, even in those times, he makes it not about himself. It's about the work that God is doing. So it's the perspective of a humble servant.
[27:17] Of a person in need of saving, strengthening, confessing sin and weakness. So responsive and antiphonal singing was an Old Testament idea that really is still in our church.
[27:31] So many of you know this song, I've decided to follow Jesus. I always thought, oh, okay, that's a great American spiritual. And that's what I thought it was. And it's not. It's, it's a tune written, they think, by a missionary to India.
[27:48] And here's what I want to do. You have this actually in your hymnal. If you want to go in there, it's on page 434. And I think it's in the people's.
[28:01] Here's what I'm going to do.
[28:15] I'm going to sing the first line. I'm going to sing one line. Then you're going to sing the next. We're going to sing it responsibly. So I have decided to follow Jesus. Then you're going to sing the same thing.
[28:27] I'm going to sing this. And we all sing this last line. Here we go. A one, two, three, four, one. I have decided to follow Jesus.
[28:41] I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus.
[28:56] No turning back. No turning back. If no one joins me, still I will follow.
[29:10] If no one joins me, still I will follow. If no one joins me, still I will follow.
[29:25] No turning back. No turning back. The cross before me.
[29:37] The world behind me. The cross before me. The world behind me.
[29:49] The cross before me. The world behind me. No turning back.
[30:01] No turning back. Okay, let's do this one now. All right. Joke. Okay.
[30:12] Isn't that interesting? I believe the story on this, they don't really know the source of why this song was written. They think there's a story going around that the chief or somebody in a tribe actually converted to Christianity and then died for their faith.
[30:30] And the songwriter actually wrote their song about this and taught it to his church in India. So let's go forward now.
[30:42] So let's go forward now. We're continuing kind of through the history of the Bible. We know that David was hired as a court musician for King Saul. He would play. I think it was the harp and we're going to see a picture of that in just a minute.
[30:56] He was inspired by God to write Psalms and to compose music. And he brought as king, he brought the ark to Jerusalem. And when he did so, this is the beginning of praise in Jerusalem.
[31:10] First Chronicle 15. What instruments, what kind of music do we see? We see singers. And this is the second time, by the way.
[31:21] The first time trying to bring the ark didn't go so well because they didn't follow the law about the ark. The second time it went pretty well. Singers, harps, lyres, which I'll show you a picture of in a second.
[31:35] Symbols, and they raised a sound of gladness. What else do you see? Singers of bronze, harps. And this is interesting to me.
[31:47] We don't know what this is according to Alamoth. We think that's a certain scale that they were tuned to. Ah, and my favorite, of course. Those were probably these.
[32:01] There are two kind of trumpets in the Bible. And thanks to Jerry, he bought this for me. Thank you, thank you, Jerry. This is a shofar. And when you see trumpet in the Bible, sometimes it's actually a shofar, which is a ram's horn.
[32:16] And it kind of sounds like this. It's really hard to play, actually. Okay. Pretty cool sound, right?
[32:34] That's probably what Joshua and what the Israelites blew outside of Jericho to make the walls coming down.
[32:46] Well, God made the walls come down. I'm not gonna... I gotta be careful as a trumpet player not to have too much pride. There's a smaller one that I have a hard time playing this one.
[32:59] So I'll try it later if you want to hear it. But those are shofars. Okay. We also see different instruments. The horn, we think that's a bigger instrument.
[33:13] Here's probably what the harp looked like that David would have played. It has seven strings. So it can play seven different notes.
[33:24] Here's what a lyre looks like. This is an actual artifact they found in the tribe, the area of the tribe of Dan. That's probably a lute, which is a mandolin, a smaller stringed instrument played like this rather than a harp.
[33:41] Okay. You heard the shofar. There were silver trumpets and we're kind of running low on time, but I would encourage you to go on YouTube and look for the trumpets of King Tut's tomb.
[33:55] They were probably like that. The British excavated that and actually played a couple of those trumpets. And you can hear that recording. They never played it again because one of them crumbled when they played it.
[34:07] So those silver trumpets were also used in worship. Okay. David set up and kind of told Solomon what he wanted the worship to be like in what God wanted for the world.
[34:20] And what I think is pretty interesting. Where did the people that where the men come from that were were worshiping? They came from the army.
[34:32] Of course, which was interesting in ancient times, musical training and physical training. Went went together. Okay. What does this have to do with our modern worship?
[34:44] So the church, the early church doesn't really have a lot of mention of instruments. This leads some denominations to say, ah, no, no instruments in church.
[34:59] But the thing is, we never, we never find it where it says, don't use instruments in church. So because we have Christian liberty, we use them. Also, just think about this.
[35:11] The early church probably met secretly, right? And you think it's a good idea to play loud music when you're in a catacomb? Probably not. Okay. So it was really the tradition to chant the Psalms.
[35:26] Okay. So I'm going to give a few mentions of music in the book of Acts. After a long time, and this in our music history classes as music majors, you spent a long time learning about the chants of the early church.
[35:46] And that's a challenge. Okay. Because music, just like the priesthood, it was kind of institutionalized and it was taken over by professionals.
[35:59] But that really changed when, ah, when the reformation came along. John Calvin, Martin Luther, some others, ah, Zwingli, ah, they conceived of Psalters, which are translations of the Psalms.
[36:17] And they put them in meters that allowed multiple verses to be sung. And I brought an example of one here.
[36:28] This is, you'll find this interesting because you'll recognize the tune, I think. And I'm going to, I'm going to play this for you. And excuse the electronic voice.
[36:39] And I'll tell you some of those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those those Thank you.
[37:39] Thank you.
[38:09] Thank you.
[38:39] Okay, anybody recognize that? We sing that as the doxology now, but originally that was a part of the Genevan Psalter, which was a collection of the Psalms that John Calvin took.
[38:55] And he would make the meter such that you notice that it worked out. He changed the words, right? This is in English, probably translated from French, but he made the meter work out.
[39:07] So it says you have to be careful because you want to keep the scripture intact, but you want it to fit with the meter of the song. That's really hard. That's really hard to do.
[39:18] So these men were really very intelligent, and they were encouraging people to sing that. That was probably going to be sung by a congregation, okay?
[39:30] So what are hymns? This leads us to what are hymns. Hymns are a little bit different than Psalms because in hymns, in Greek culture, it was praise directed to a god or a hero, right?
[39:43] But in Christianity, we're singing to the one true god, right? Technically, you have to have the same. You notice that the national anthem, there are a couple of weird spots, weren't there?
[39:57] It's because like, oh, how do we make those words fit? That's a real trick when you're writing a hymn. It's much, we look at ancient poetry to kind of get that.
[40:09] I'm going to do this now. I'm going to ask Lynn if she will come up, and we're going to actually look at a hymn. We're going to sing number 656. I'm getting you warmed up for the worship service, so get out your hymnals.
[40:23] Now, look at this. What's the name of a mighty fortress is our god? It's ein Festerburg ist unser Gott, okay? If you put that into words, if you ever hear it sung in German, it's very different.
[40:37] They leave, oh, it's like, oh, they changed the rhythm of that. It's because the language is just a little bit different. We're going to sing maybe two verses of this for time's sake.
[40:47] A mighty fortress is our god, a bulwark never failing.
[41:13] Our helper he amidst the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
[41:26] For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe.
[41:38] His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, On earth is not his equal.
[41:55] Did we in our own strength confine? Our striving would be losing.
[42:09] Were not the right man on our side? The man of God's own choosing.
[42:23] You ask who that may be. Christ Jesus, it is he.
[42:34] Lord, he must win the battle.
[42:52] Thank you, Miss Lynn. Thank you so much. Great. So let's look at the last couple of verses. Last couple of verses talk about how Satan is our great opponent.
[43:09] He's trying to destroy us. But God's truth triumphs through us, right? The prince of darkness, it's talking a little bit about him, but then look at Satan's doom is sure.
[43:26] One word shall fell him, right? The word of Jesus. Verse 4 talks about all earthly powers abide with him as well, But the spirit and the gifts are ours through him who sides with us, right?
[43:44] Let goods and kindreds go, this mortal life also, the body he may kill. God's truth abides still, his kingdom is forever.
[43:55] So if we look at this, let's look at what's been mentioned so far. And this is what a good hymn, I believe, should do. What does it tell us about God? He's a mighty fortress, right?
[44:10] He's mighty. This is interesting because the man who translated this into English was a Unitarian. So we have to look at some things. He's a bulwark.
[44:22] What's a bulwark? A bulwark is defensive. But the German word for that is both defensive and offensive. Isn't that interesting? What is it?
[44:35] Who is? Satan is not his equal. It's talking about the Lord, correct? It talks about what about our own strength? What does it say about that?
[44:47] What do you think? It loses. Yeah. Yeah. We're not that strong. We need Jesus on our side, right?
[44:59] What's interesting, let's go back. It talks about Lord Sabaoth. So a good hymn. It's like, oh, what's that talking about? That means the Lord of hosts, right? And here's the German, the translation from German, actually.
[45:13] His name is Jesus Christ, the Lord of hosts. And this is the German. It says, there is no other God. Never says that in the Unitarian one.
[45:26] Because they believe there is no Trinity. So that's kind of interesting what shows up even in our hymnals. So it tells us a lot about who God is, right?
[45:38] Thank you, Lynn. You can go back down if you want. She's so patient. Okay. So it makes us clear who we're singing to.
[45:48] The Father, the man of God, who is Jesus, right? Lord Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, and Christ Jesus. And in the last verse, he talks about the Spirit.
[46:00] It's pretty rich theologically, okay? Now, there's some great modern praise songs that are really just beautiful songs. And we're talking about this around the table. And this is one, how many of you know this, reckless love?
[46:16] Okay. Now, let's look at this with the same lens here. Overwhelming, never-ending. Does that describe God's love?
[46:29] Absolutely. Absolutely. It's like, yes. Reckless. Hmm. Let's come back to that one. Chases me down. God comes to us.
[46:40] He calls us. He gifts us with faith. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Does he leave the 99 to find the one? Yeah. That's really great. I like that. I couldn't earn it.
[46:51] I don't deserve it. Still, Jesus gives himself away, right? Although it never says Jesus, does it? It doesn't tell us that it's Jesus.
[47:04] It says God. Okay. So that's good. Do you see? We got a little bit of a mixed record here. How about reckless? Do we ever find the Bible saying God's love was reckless?
[47:19] A big no on that. He thought about that from the beginning of creation. He knew he had a story planned out and had a way to redeem us.
[47:31] So what's beautiful is God's love is so eternal like that. Reckless? Not so sure. I don't think so. So I want to do this.
[47:43] I want to leave you with a couple things to think about as far as how we worship God through music. This is what a former worship leader said. Understanding how songs get written or how they get chosen for worship is a complicated task.
[48:02] It often starts by trying to figure out what song or what message works best in a local congregation. Our number one priority was to write songs for the people in our church.
[48:16] To me that's a scary statement. That's a scary statement. Because we want to write God first, people second, right?
[48:26] We wanted to write songs that help the church find language for the various experiences that we're going through. I don't deny that. But we want to be very, very careful about what we choose to sing and does it have rich theology.
[48:45] Here's one. And I'm not going to pick on her. Some of you probably like her music. But I will pick on this one song. How many of you know this song? You say, Lauren Daigle. You know it.
[48:58] It was on the radio for a long time. I'm going to go past the lyrics. 58 uses of personal pronouns. My, me, I, me, my, and I'm.
[49:10] 22 uses of you, you, and your, and one mention of generic God. And this is my charge.
[49:21] I want you to think about this. I might be stepping on toes. But we can be, we can do better in this because music is a way, remember, of passing on ideas about who God is to the next generation and doing so in a beautiful manner.
[49:39] So here's my last point. Reason number four. Christians must sing not out of a sense of duty, but as a natural and spontaneous response to the exhibition of divine glory and creation.
[49:52] Go to Romans 1 for that, right? Amazing. And their own experience of salvation. So we aren't leaving that experience out, but we're, it's a spontaneous response.
[50:03] When you sing this morning, I want to, I want you to remember how blessed we all are to be here, to be worshiping a God who's worthy of all our praise. It's, again, that Daniel I block.
[50:14] He had a lot of good things to say in that book. Okay? So here's what we do. Psalm 98. Let's do this again. Sing to Yahweh a new song.
[50:27] That's right. So a new song. Get that? We're supposed to be singing new songs and singing new songs about the Lord. They're important alongside the long, varied tradition of hymns.
[50:41] Okay? A couple closing thoughts. If you want to look at this New Testament music, remember Jesus sang with the disciples before they, before they left the upper room having the Lord's Supper.
[50:54] He sang the Hallel, which is Psalm 118. Probably they sang the stone which the builders rejected become the cornerstone. Isn't that amazing?
[51:05] They sang that right before he went to the cross. And then Paul to the New Testament church at Ephesus. What did they do? He commands them, do not get drunk with wine.
[51:19] That is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns, spiritual songs. Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.
[51:30] Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. To God, even the Father. And being subject to one another in the fear of Christ. So music is evidence that we're filled with the Spirit.
[51:45] I love that. Right? I love that. It promotes our community as believers in him. And we thank God through him. So thanks, praise, and community.
[51:59] And being filled with the Spirit. Okay. Let's do this. I'm done. I don't know. Should I open it up? Does anybody have any questions before we pray?
[52:12] Yes. Pruitt, I think we can do that, right?
[52:24] By the way, thank you, Pruitt. Thank you, Troy. Thank you for all your help with this. I don't think you know how much they do. So can we recognize those two?
[52:36] Thank you. And also Jerry, who bought those shofars for me. Those are pretty cool.
[52:47] I don't think he's here this morning, but okay. Well, let's close with a word of prayer. Dear Lord Jesus, as we pray for our music ministry and Christy, the choir, the instrumentalists, and this congregation, I pray that we joyfully glorify you, both as a body and as individuals.
[53:11] I pray that the songs about your great love and your redemption, if there are those that are singing these songs and don't believe the words, I pray that they would know the power of those words.
[53:25] that your word is strong, that it delivers us, that it gives us redemption, it gives us hope. And without your word, there is none of those things.
[53:38] I pray that we would truly believe these things, and Lord, help send your spirit to make melody, not only today in this worship, but in our hearts.
[53:49] Help join truth and beauty together in the perfect balance, and give us the heart of David, a musician, a man of God, after your own heart. Help us express in song who you are and what you've done for us through Jesus, truly and richly and beautifully.
[54:08] Thanks be to God. Amen.