THE GOSPEL OF GOD



SINGING GOD’S SONGS

(Deuteronomy 31:16-22)

SUBJECT:

F.C.F:

PROPOSITION:

INTRODUCTION:

A. Some years ago I wandered into a mine field by commenting on the subject of church worship music selection. This was in the height of the “worship wars,” and in response to these debates (and for a doctor of ministry course on worship at Covenant Seminary) wrote a short book on the subject. The professor liked it immensely and gave me his first-ever A+. It was subsequently published. It must have hit the mark to some extent, because few other people really liked it. That’s probably because I attempted to steer what I believe to be the middle, biblical course, and so those on either end of the debate were not terribly satisfied by it. The centerpiece of this short book was a mostly objective evaluation tool by which to assess the various songs we use in worship on a scale of zero to 200. Probably there is no song that would score a perfect 200.

(If you would like a copy of this book, I have them for $4.00. There is a copy in the Hospers Public Library, as well as the Dordt College Library, and the Orange City and Sioux Center Public Libraries.)

But if there is so much turmoil and dissension about singing in worship so that worship wars are the result, then perhaps it’s best to forego singing altogether. Perhaps we should just speak God’s truth and leave music out of worship. Why sing songs in church?

B. The answer is that God commands it. God commands it in the psalms, where we find that the longest book in the Bible is a songbook, not a history book or prophecy book. God commands singing in two New Testament epistles, in Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. God commands singing by the example of our Lord Jesus and his disciples, who on the night he was betrayed, sang a hymn just before they left the upper room. And God commands singing in our text for this evening, followed by God’s giving a hymn through Moses that Israel was to sing in every generation.

Why does God command that we sing his truth?

I. THE POWER OF SINGING GOD’S SONGS.

A. The answer is that this is the way God has made us. God has created us to respond to music, to song. That’s the way God made us. We like music. My father, who never learned to read music or to play any musical instrument, never missed Lawrence Welk and his Champaign Band on Saturday nights, and I used to love stand next to him in worship and hear him sing with his rich, baritone voice. With very few exceptions (and those exceptions I think are fibbing a bit) people love music.

And music is everywhere: television, movies, radio, personal music devices, musical instruments, humming, and whistling. The advertisers have not missed the power music exerts on us. Music is used to sell everything. There is scarcely an advertisement on radio or television that is not bathed in music from start to finish. Music is used to carry the plots of movies, musicals are one of the most sought after form of entertainment, and the music industry itself is big business. Nobody ever became an American idol by reciting poetry. It’s music; music is everywhere.

B. Music touches a different part of us than mere words alone. Music makes memorization easier. Most every child in America learns their alphabet to a slightly annoying melody. In fact, music tends to drive the lyrics deep into our souls and tends to keep them close to our lips. When parents complain about the truly awful words of some songs, teenagers will often respond, “I just like the music. I don’t listen to the words. And yet, if you watch them listening to their music, their lips are moving. If you start out the lyrics, they can often finish them.

Rod Rosenblatt, a regular host on the White Horse Inn radio program often tells the story of a young Jewish woman who was doing research on the effect of the music that the Nazis used to sell their agenda to the people of Germany, especially the youth. She found herself unconsciously humming and eventually singing the very songs the Nazis used to convince their people to exterminate her relatives.

God tells Moses: “21 And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring).” They will know the lyrics because they’ve grown up singing this song. That’s the power of singing. One Christian leader declared: “I don’t mind who writes the theological books, so long as I can write the hymns!”

We should consider…

II. THE PURPOSE OF SINGING GOD’S SONGS.

The reason why God gave them this song to sing is perhaps a bit unusual by today’s standards. And God explains his purpose in verses 19-21a: “19 “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that e this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. 20 For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. 21 And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring).”

So what’s the purpose for this song? It is to serve as a witness against God’s people. If they turn from him and turn to other gods (which they surely will), then this song that is in their hearts and on their lips will confront them and condemn them. It is a song about the judgment of God for becoming careless and lax toward him. It is a song that pledges God’s severe chastening. Why does God give us his songs to sing? In this instance, at least, it was as a warning of his covenant curses for our unfaithfulness and disobedience. When’s the last time you sang a song in worship that warned you of God’s chastening for your disobedience? When’s the last time you heard a song like that on Christian radio or played a song like that off a CD? And yet the first time that God clearly commands his people to sing to him, it is a song of warning and judgment.

Does God have a right to tell us what songs he would like to hear from us? It would seem so. Does God have any criteria for songs he would like to hear from us? I think he does.

Yet how do we select our songs? Mainly, by personal preference. The first year I was pastor here, a dear older woman came up to me and asked, “Why don’t we sing any of the good old songs anymore?” I thought of the hymns we’d just sung in worship: all of them were at least 200 years old. One was by Bernard of Clairvaux, over 500 years old. I realized “good old” did not necessarily refer to a song’s antiquity.

So I asked her to compile a list of “good old” songs, which she did immediately. And, as I suspected, they mostly revivalist songs that had been popular when she was growing up. She was selecting songs by the criterion of personal preference.

Some time later I was speaking with a woman from another state. She enthusiastically told me about a high energy song her church had sung the Sunday before. I knew the song. It went like this:

Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate

Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate

Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate

Celebrate, Jesus, Celebrate

He is risen, He is risen,

And he lives forevermore

He is risen, He is risen,

Come on and celebrate

The resurrection of our Lord.

When I pointed out the empty lyrics of the song, its repetitive nature, and its utter dependence on musical instruments to carry it, she replied, “I know, I know. But I like it.” She also was selecting songs by the criterion of personal preference.

Mostly it was because these songs made them feel a certain way: stirred up, alert, excited, engaged. But what we must bear in mind is that it is the words that are of primary importance. The fact is that when God gave them this song to sing, he only gave them the lyrics, not the music. There is no indication of what tune they were to sing, only the words.

Think about this: most of the songs we sing today are selected by a popularity contest. How are songs selected for worship? Today it is according to what is popular. And how does a worship song become popular? Usually by radio airplay. And who chooses which songs to play on the radio? Consumers, according to the purchase of CD’s and singles. And, of course, we know that consumers are constantly scouring the Scriptures trying to discern which songs are most pleasing to God and most closely reflect his glory as revealed in Scripture, right?

How many songs like the one God commanded his people to sing in Deuteronomy 31 would ever get on the radio? Do you see the problem?

The only reason we are to sing to God in worship is because he commands us to, and he also explains the purpose or reasons for singing songs, one of which is almost completely ignored today. So perhaps we need to exercise some discernment regarding the songs we sing to God. Perhaps we need some theological criteria to assess the songs we sing, rather than the sole criterion of personal preference—I like it. Most of us have not ever considered that the first quality of a song we sing in worship is not its personal appeal. Why is that?

It’s largely due to a serious misunderstanding about worship.

1. Entertainment “Worship”

The most common kind of worship promoted by churches today is entertainment worship. This was probably inevitable, especially in America. In his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in an Age of Show Business, author Neil Postman demonstrates how most every form of communication in America today has been re-cast in terms of entertainment. News reporting, for example, is not a sober recounting of the most significant issues of the day, but rather the most sensational, those which pique the greatest interest. Even then there is little true analysis, but rather only the most salacious details. CNN Headline News is what most news has become: just the headlines, with the constant scrawl of unrelated and useless information at the bottom of the page. Segments offer “the world in a minute.” Really? How is that possible? It is possible only in the entertainment world. It is only possible by offering stimulating, decontexualized, and unrelated snippets of trivia, not for understanding but for…entertainment.

And education, following the advent of Sesame Street, must also be entertainment. Education today must feature continual movement, vivid colors, lively music, and especially humor, or students will (can) not pay attention. He notes that what Sesame Street has largely done is to educate children to expect this kind of show and to disable them from substantive learning. The same may be said of politics. We are expected to cast our precious votes on the basis of a relentless barrage of 30-second attack adds in which candidates accuse each other of terrible crimes and misdemeanors or make promises that no one could possibly keep.

But the same is now true of the church. Thanks largely to Robert H. Schuller and his “Crystal Cathedral,” worship as entertainment has become the norm, the standard, the rule instead of the exception. The Billy Graham Crusade Show was moved to Sunday morning and rebroadcast on nationwide TV. When Schuller’s approach was criticized in the early years, the criticism was specifically to our point: “This is not worship, it is evangelism. Your church is not really worshiping God.” To this he replied that this did not really matter since the congregation actually worshiped on a week night. Instead they had deliberately chosen a different purpose for Sunday mornings.” Really? As a result, thousands of churches began to copy the Sunday morning show, and worship got lost in the shuffle.

2. Sentimental “Worship”

Pre-dating Schuller’s “entertainment worship” was another distorted form of worship which we could call “sentimental worship.” Emotion can be very powerful, and some strong emotions can be very pleasant. Most pleasant of all, perhaps, is the catharsis through which we suddenly release a lot of pent up emotions, usually through having a good cry but also through deep and vigorous laughing. Afterward, we feel rather light and airy, cleansed and euphoric (“catharsis” literally means “washing”).

And it was also noticed that biblical truths and themes can evoke strong emotion: heaven and hell, sin and repentance, forgiveness and grace, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, etc. When we dwell on these great truths we cannot help but to become emotional. We shed tears or we shout for joy. Indeed, the Holy Spirit produces fruit in us that certainly engages our emotions: love, joy, and peace, for example.

But it was also noticed that these deep feelings can be engineered through various means: the manipulation of lighting, mood music, the person’s physical condition through rhythmic clapping, breathing, dancing, or chanting, and through a lack of sleep or an irregular diet. Those of us who were raised on watching Billy Graham Crusades on television can hardly hear an organ playing “Just As I Am,” without getting a bit misty-eyed.

Hollywood has certainly noticed these means and uses them to great effect in “tear-jerker” movies. They make multiple millions of dollars by making us cry, and we gladly pay them for the privilege. And cults have noticed this as well. Some cults deliberately draw in emotionally starved people, wear down their defenses, and nearly force them to have a dramatic emotional experience. How do they do it? Through the glorious, dramatic truth of the Gospel? No, through the very techniques which we described before. And in order to maintain this deeply felt, euphoric breakthrough, one has to go even deeper into the teachings and practices of the group, relinquishing control to them which often results in some kind of exploitation by the leadership.

Western culture has often vacillated between periods of rationalism and romanticism. On the one extreme, rationalism is the belief that the mind, logic and reason, are our surest guides. Emotions or feelings are utterly unreliable, and the wise person strives to control his or her emotions. On the other extreme, romanticism tells us that our feelings or emotions are what we are at the deepest level. Our mind may play tricks on us, and reason is rejected as cold and calculating, but our feelings will never fail to show us the way. Emotions are pure and are the unfailing guide into reality and truth. Of course the Bible tells us to trust neither our reasoning nor our emotions: both are fallen into sin, and both will deceive us. Rather we are to trust God’s revelation in his Word.

But we are in a deeply romantic age today in which the mind is almost completely discounted and our feelings are thought to be infallible. So from this context, true Christianity is no longer something be studied and learned, as though we simply read the Bible, believe what it says, and live through faith in our Redeemer. Rather, “authentic” (a key word today) Christianity is about having deep experiences. It is about our emotions, our feelings. “I don’t want head knowledge,” a contemporary Christian will say, “I want to feel it in my heart.” And so in these feel-good “worship” services, the focus is on feelings. Preaching becomes story-telling and the music is calculated to move people emotionally, every step of the way.

By the way, when the church service is focusing on creating an emotional response from the audience, what is it NOT focusing on? “Honoring the Lord as God and giving thanks to him.” Please do not misunderstand me: I expect the Christian faith to touch people deeply. Christian truth ought to move us to grief, sadness, repentance, resolve, compassion, and joy. But to focus on this response in order to create and craft worship “experiences” which will facilitate deep emotion is idolatry. We have suddenly lost our focus on “honoring the Lord as God” and “giving thanks to him,” and begun to focus on our feelings, on self.

3. Therapeutic “Worship”

Worship is about adoring what is most precious. For the unbeliever, God is not most precious, self is. God is largely irrelevant, while self is all absorbing, for self is all the unbeliever really has left. When it comes to evangelism, we need to reach out to those isolated self’s, to expose the folly of self-idolatry, and to repeat our Lord Jesus’ words that “if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

But leave it to modern evangelicalism to come up with an ingenious (diabolical) compromise that leaves the postmodern self-seeker still utterly self-absorbed, but also eagerly attending “worship” services. The innovation was to create “therapeutic worship.” “Are you in love with your self? So are we! We think self is the greatest thing on earth. And we gather together not only to celebrate self, but also to improve self. We want to make you the best self you can be, and that’s what God wants, too.”

These therapeutic worship churches are a dime a dozen today. They focus alternately on three subjects: 1) helping you better understand yourself, 2) helping you feel better about yourself (or helping your self to feel better), and 3) helping you become a better self. I know that when I state it this way, it sounds astonishingly crass and hollow, but this is what many churches are pedaling these days.

And much like the sentimental church, the therapeutic church uses music to lift the spirits of the (self) worshiper, to help one feel better about self. Most of the songs in the therapeutic church will begin with the word “I” and will not stray far from that subject.

We must remember that our goal is often very different from God’s goal. We are almost always interested in personal satisfaction. God is always interested in personal sanctification.

So there will likely be a wide difference between the songs that we like and the songs would be best for us. When we suffer catastrophic loss, when we are betrayed by a friend, when we are nearly swept away by temptation, I’m not sure will be helped much by chanting “celebrate, Jesus, celebrate” over and over again.

I think the Puritans were on to something when they described a threefold aim in preaching: to glorify God, to humble man, and to strengthen faith in Christ. Perhaps that would be a good rule of thumb when it comes to the songs we sing to God.

To glorify God: not, to make God glorious, but to declare, to proclaim, to trumpet the glory of God.

To humble man: to remind us of our creaturely smallness and especially of our brokenness and lost-ness and inability as sinners.

And to strengthen faith in Christ: every song should in some way be a “gospel” song, in that it should exult in the good news of Christ’s sacrifice of love and his resurrection power.

And this leads us to…

III. THE PROMISE OF SINGING GOD’S SONGS.

God gives Moses a song of warning that will sting the lips of his people and smite their consciences when they forsake him. There is great promise in such rebuke. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” A well informed, tender conscience, is a great blessing of God.

But there is great promise in many of the other kinds of songs we sing as well. If it is a song of penitence or repentance, there is the hope of reconciliation with God. If it is a song of petition, it is a prayer. We can also sing our prayers to God, and God is very near to us when we cry out to him. If it is a song exalting the greatness and majesty of our God, it has the promise of shaking our eyes loose from self interest to focus them on the surpassing and incomparable glory of God, and we may just find our gaze transfixed for good, literally, for good.

And if it is a song about the gospel: “In Christ alone, my hope is found,” “And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Savior’s blood?” “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” Then, in these gospel songs, there is humbling for sin, but exulting in Christ. And there is great promise in the gospel.

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