Heavenly Father, we are thankful that we do have the opportunity to sing your praises, that we have gathered this morning to worship you, to ascribe unto you the glory that is due your name. And we know that if left to ourselves, that is the last thing that we would desire to do, that if we have any desire to glorify you and sing your praise, it is because you have worked in our hearts by your grace and by the Spirit We thank you for the hope that we have in Christ that we gather as those who still wrestle with sin, but because of what Christ has done, we gather as redeemed sinners, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And so may that hope be at the forefront of our minds as we worship today. Please bless our time as we think about the history of your church and what your word says about your praise. and may we be transformed today by the renewal of our minds, and may we not be conformed to this world, but be conformed to your word, and as a result, be conformed to the image of Christ, and we pray in his name, amen. So we're gonna talk about music today, and here is a, good morning. We got room for you, come on in. We're gonna start with a quote from John Calvin. And this quote is about music in a sense in general, but specifically as it relates to praising the Lord. Let me read it for you. You see it up here. John Calvin wrote, we know from experience that song has great force and vigor to arouse and inflame the hearts of men. Now you could stop right there and everyone would agree. Okay, music is powerful, is what John Calvin is saying. But then he goes on to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal. So he's not critiquing music there. He's not presenting it in a negative light. He's stating that it's powerful, but that God has chosen music, and as we'll see this morning, specifically singing as a chosen instrument to glorify himself through his people, okay? And so music is a powerful thing, ordained by God unto his praise. Now, picture here of, this is First Presbyterian Church in New York City, does not look like that today, although that church is still around. It's a PCUSA, very liberal congregation. Not liberal when this rendering was made, but I present this picture to you to say that this church was the focus of a huge controversy in the history of the Presbyterian Church, and that controversy had to do with, drumroll, music. And I say that to you for two reasons. One, the controversy over music that you may hear about in various churches in our day is not a new thing, it's a very old thing. But I wanna look at exactly what was the controversy because it's gonna be a way that we can look at church history. We're gonna look at a little bit of church history today. And then from there, we're gonna go into looking at what God's word says about praising the Lord. Now, these are the three figures kind of at the center of the controversy. Does anybody recognize any of these men? Maybe the one on the left? George Whitfield. Okay. George Whitfield. Very good. Does anybody know who the person on the bottom right is? It's another well-known name. That's Isaac Watts. Isaac Watts. Okay. And you'll learn a little bit more about him. One that you probably have never even heard of is the other one, and Francis Roos was his name. Now, I'll explain why those men were at the center of this controversy, and hopefully you'll appreciate a little bit of this controversy for our purposes. So what was the controversy all about that happened at this church, First Presbyterian Church in New York? Well, Francis Roos, the man on the top right, he wrote and put together what was known as a Psalter, a book of Psalms that were designed to be sung. He did that in 1643. And the Church of Scotland decided to take that, they revised it, and they adopted it, and it became the main songbook for the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, which was the Church of Scotland, in 1650. Now, I have here, this is a copy of that psalter. Now, this is a reprint, so this is not from 1650, in case you're wondering. It's in really good condition, man. This is a reprint, okay, it was published by the Trinitarian Bible Society, but this is essentially what Presbyterians would have been holding in their hands in 1650. And there's no music in here, it's all words, okay, but they would have sung, every single song would have been a song. So they would have sung on a particular Lord's Day, say Psalm 35 and Psalm 50 and Psalm 150, and they would have not just read them, but they would have sung them, okay? So if anyone wants to look at this, feel free to pass it around. So that was one aspect of the controversy. That church in New York was using basically that as their songbook, all right? Isaac Watts in 1719, so a long time after 1650, he put together his own version of the Psalms. And you can tell they're gonna be different because the title of it was Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament. So he said, I wanna take the Psalms and I wanna adapt them so that we can work in language, explicit language about Christ and what he's done and so on and so forth. This thing happened in this country called the First Great Awakening, and it was huge. Itinerant preachers like George Whitefield, you already saw his mug earlier, and there's a rendering of him preaching there to some people who were gathered. They would preach sometimes, many times, outdoors because large crowds would gather. And there was a revival that took place. Many people were converted to the cause of Christ. Many people saw their sin, turned from their sin, and turned to Christ. And God used men like George Whitefield. So that was a wonderful moving of God. But also at these meetings, they would sing. And the question became, what are they gonna sing? Well, Whitefield was a big fan of Isaac Watts. And he was a big fan of Isaac Watts hymns. Now I say hymns because the purists did not view them as psalms, as singing the psalms, they viewed them as hymns. That Isaac Watts made them himself, they were inspired by the psalms, but he updated them with New Testament language. And so Whitefield would bring these hymns to his meetings and they became very, very popular as people would go to these meetings and they would sing and they would many times be converted and those songs would have a special place for them. So Whitfield was very instrumental in Watt's popularity. Now, in case you're wondering how popular Isaac Watts got. As you know, this is the hymnal that is in our sanctuary. This hymnal you will find in most PCA churches. This is just the red Trinity hymnal. Isaac Watts has 36 hymns in this Trinity hymnal, more than anyone else. Now, that's a testimony to his popularity down through the ages. Now, you know some of these when I survey the wondrous cross, maybe being the one you know the most well. But what you may not know is that, as we've said, many of the hymns written by Isaac Watts were based in the Psalms. He was really wanting to continue this tradition of singing the Psalms. In his mind, he was wanting to update them with New Testament language, if that makes sense. His most well-known one is Joy to the World, which you may not know, but if you look in the Trinity Hymnal, you turn to it and you look at the bottom, it will say, based on Psalm 98. Our God, our help in ages past is another one, based on Psalm 90. This is the day the Lord has made, based on Psalm 118. So that's what Isaac Watts was doing. Wanting to continue this tradition of singing the Psalms, but updating them in a sense with his own words, but the goal was to update them with New Testament language. And so what happened in that church in New York City is Whitefield, as he made the rounds, was invited to come and preach at this church in New York City. And as he did, wherever he went, he brought in with him Isaac Watt's adaptation of the Psalms. And of course it did not go well with many in the church because they were used to singing what were in their minds the actual Psalms, okay, from this Psalter that had been adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1650. And so there was a butting of heads because eventually what happened is that church said, we are going to start incorporating into our worship some of Isaac Watt's hymns, some of his adaptation of the Psalms. And so there was a big dust up in this church. Now, let me say this, okay? As I said, part of that is to indicate that people getting, you know, maybe in a an uproar to the point where they leave the church over music. That's not new by any stretch of the imagination. But one of the sad things that was lost on that congregation was the fact that the congregation was singing. That regardless of what was being talked about, and it was an important question, the congregation was involved in God's worship, okay? The question they were debating was could the church sing only songs or were hymns permitted, songs of human composition? So if somebody wrote a song, it was a great song, praising the Lord, could you sing it in worship? That's what they were worried about. But what I want to do for a moment is to take a step back because what you and I take for granted, and by the time that controversy had reached that church in New York, what they took for granted is that the congregation was singing at all. We just assume that when we gather in there, we are going to sing, just as that church in New York assumed the same thing. But before the Protestant Reformation, that was not the case, and you may not realize that. We've touched on it a little bit in this class, but I want to think just for a moment about the state of corporate praise before the Reformation. Hughes Old, he's no longer living, he was kind of the most well-known authority on reformed worship, probably in the world. He said this, he said, the common people, this is in the Middle Ages, the late Middle Ages before the Reformation, could neither sing it, that is the music that was used, nor understand it, because it was in Latin. It was by and large, although not completely, the treasure of the cathedral and the monastery rather than the town church or the village chapel. So what you had that was going on in the late Middle Ages is, first of all, music had gotten very sophisticated. It had gotten very complex. And so the common person, not only did they not know what was being said, because it was in Latin, they couldn't sing along, but they couldn't keep up with the music. It was seen to be the case that the music is for the professionals. That sounds very contemporary. But that's what was going on in the late Middle Ages. Now the professionals were often the monastic choir. So in these monasteries, the monks would learn this music and they would rehearse and they would practice and they would perform. And the congregation would essentially remain passive. All right, they would watch, they were spectators. They were not singing the Lord's praise, and they didn't really understand what was being sung to them. They watched, all right, they watched. James Nichols, another historian, says this, medieval worshipers were, in general, uncomprehending observers of the worship of the clergy. That was the state of corporate worship before the Reformation, right? And what was the impact of the Reformation? Well, we know that in many ways regarding the gospel and the authority of God's word, but we often don't think about or maybe we don't know the impact of the Reformation when it came to corporate praise. For one, choirs, if there were choirs, were often moved to the back, right? Why do you think they were moved to the back? not performing. That's right, that's right. Now, a choir can assist the congregation in the praise of God, which is fine, but the perception that the Reformers worried about was that the people would just become passive again, that they would think that this group is just going to lead us. They're going to do all the worship and we're just going to sit here. And they said, no, the goal of what we're trying to do is restore congregational singing. We want every believer present to be singing the Lord's praise. So they moved the choirs to the back, if there were any at all, and if they were retained. And then you saw this explosion in many ways of writing of songs to be sung by just the average everyday worshiper. Martin Luther wrote many hymns. The most well-known one, of course, is A Mighty Fortress is Our God, which is based on a psalm, Psalm 46. John Calvin, in 1542, helped put together a psalter, long before the one that's being passed around. right, known as the Genevan Psalter, and it had a few hymns in it, but mostly it was the Psalms, but here's the point. Calvin's main focus was, we want to get these in the hands of people and before people so that when God's people gather, they can sing the Lord's praise, right? They're not going to be passive, they're going to be active in praising the Lord. One of the men that Calvin recruited to help him put together this psalter was a man named Louis Bourgeois. And I mention this name just for this reason, and I think we've mentioned this before in this class, but every Lord's Day when we sing the doxology, the tune that we sing it to was a tune written by that man, okay, and written for the Genevan Psalter. That's how old that tune is. And that tune is called Old Hundredth because it was originally written for the 100th psalm, for that Geneva Psalter. And we have a version of that psalm, the 100th psalm, which is actually the very first hymn in our hymnal. If you look at it at the bottom, it'll say Psalm 100, all people that on earth do dwell. So the impact of the Reformation was to churn out material to get God's people to sing his praise. And it was psalmody, that is, getting the psalms in front of God's people, but also getting hymns in front of God's people. But the goal was to get God's people to sing. And you saw this explosive growth of all of these hymns that were being written. And here's just a couple of names, okay? Charles Wesley, I think, has the second most hymns in the Trinity Hymnal behind Isaac Watts, but we know many of these. O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Jesus Lover of My Soul, John Newton, Amazing Grace being perhaps the most well-known hymn of all time. and then let us love and sing and wonder. There you go. So these hymns became hugely popular, but one of the wonderful things was that God's people were actually singing these hymns. They were singing them as they gathered to worship the Lord on the Lord's Day. Now, I want us to look at Scripture in the time we have remaining. Starting in the Old Testament, look in the New Testament just at what does the Bible say about praising the Lord, okay? Turn to the book of Psalms. And that's very fitting that we should go there because, and I do want to stress this, God's people have, for the history of the church, sung the Psalms. That was not something unique to the Scottish Presbyterians, that God's people for virtually the entire history of the church, have sung the Psalms. Old Testament, down into the New Testament, down to the present day. And so, the book of Psalms, in many ways, is the song book of the church. And we see there, Psalm 135, 1-2, and I could have chosen many passages, but praise the Lord, praise the name of the Lord, give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. That's Psalm 135, verses one and two. Now I want you to look, turn to 146, and as you get to the end of the book of Psalms, which when you're at 146, you're near the end, okay? The language about praising the Lord just ramps up, okay? And the ending of the book of Psalms, which is 146 to 150, every one of those Psalms, 146, 147, you can look at them, 148, they all begin, 149, 150, with praise the Lord. That's the first line in each of those Psalms. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And Psalm 150, okay, is kind of this explosion of praise. As you look at the last Psalm in the Psalter, which is another name for the book of Psalms, you see, praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, and then on down through that Psalm, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, on and on. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord." That's how the book of Psalms ends on that note. And so there's this heavy concentration of praising the Lord language at the very end, and then it ends with this explosion of praise in Psalm 50. And that's to show us the importance of what we're being called to do when we gather. One of the things that is, and that is praise the Lord. Now, one of the things you may not have realized, and I wanna show you this, and there's a purpose here for when we get to the New Testament, is the ones who were really responsible for praising the Lord in the Old Testament were really the priests, okay, the priests. And I wanna show you this. I want you to go to 1 Chronicles, all right, 1 Chronicles 6. 1 Chronicles 6. Now, I'm not saying that the priests were the only ones who ever praised the Lord, but I'm saying that the ministry of praise was lodged with the priests. And you go to 1 Chronicles 6, right? What we're gonna see there, if you look maybe in your Bible at the beginning of chapter six, it says descendants of Levi. You know, Levi was one of the sons of Jacob, one of the tribes of Israel, and the priests came from Levi, so descendants of Levi. And you look there in verses 31 to 32, okay, and you see, these are the men whom David put in charge of the service of Song in the house of the Lord after the ark rested there. Now, who are those men? Well, they're descendants of Levi. The ones who were in charge of song, of God's praise, were from the priestly line. They were from the priestly class, okay? Now, I want you to, and I want to stress this point, because there's somewhere where we're going, okay? Go to chapter 15, 1 Chronicles. I'm gonna get you some 1 Chronicles this morning, okay? Don't get too excited on me. 1 Chronicles 15 and verse 16 says, David also commanded the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their brothers as the singers who should play loudly on musical instruments, on harps and lyres and cymbals to raise sounds of joy. And then you go over to chapter 23. 23. And verse 5, and in this chapter we see a transition from the tabernacle to the temple. David is preparing for the temple, but we still see the same note of the priestly class being in charge of God's worship. Chapter 23, verse 5. 4,000 gatekeepers and 4,000 shall offer praises to the Lord with the instruments that I have made for praise." If you look up at the heading of chapter 23, David organizes the Levites, still talking about the Levites here. You look down at verse 30 and verse 31 of that same chapter. And they were to stand, this is those who were chosen out of the Levites, every morning, thanking and praising the Lord, and likewise at evening, and whenever burnt offerings were offered to the Lord on Sabbaths, new moons, and feast days, according to the number required of them regularly before the Lord. And then one more in 1 Chronicles, look at chapter 25, may just be the next page over for you, verse 7. And here there's, once again, more specificity, but this is still the Levites. The number of them along with their brothers who were trained in singing to the Lord, all who were skillful, was 288. If you look up at the first verse there in chapter 25, you will see the name Asaph. And you may have recognized that name before in the book of Psalms, okay? There are many Psalms that it will say a song of Esau. Okay, it was from his family, okay? So what you see in the Old Testament tabernacle in the temple is that God's praise was important. It was an element of worship, but the ones who were to really be responsible for praising the Lord, singing to him and even playing instruments to accompany that singing were from the priestly class, right? Go over to Ezra. Ezra 3. Ezra's one of those you're like, where is that? That's OK. I will say again, there's nothing wrong. I think I've said it before with turning to the table of contents. That's OK. You get no judgment from me. Can't speak for anyone else. Ezra 3 10-11. And I point this to you because this is after the people of God had been taken into captivity in Babylon. They had been released. They were going back. They were getting ready to rebuild the temple. Ezra 3 10-11. And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals to praise the Lord. So they're continuing according to the directions of David, king of Israel. And they sang responsibly, praising and giving thanks to the Lord. This is what they sang, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. toward Israel, okay? That's from the Psalms, okay? And let me read you something, and you're welcome to turn here, Jeremiah 33, okay, and verse 11, because what I wanna show you here is Jeremiah had prophesied that that would actually happen, okay? The Lord had given this message to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 33, and verse 11, It says this, that the people will return from captivity, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing as they bring thank offerings, and it's really this idea of the ministry of praise, to the house of the Lord. And then it says this, give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. for I will restore the fortunes of the land as it first says the Lord. There had been this prophecy that you will gather again and you will have this rich blessing of being able to praise me, the Lord is saying. Now, up until that point, okay, the ministry of praise, the task of bringing the sacrifice of praise was given to the priestly class. Those were the ones who were responsible for it. And so when we come to the New Testament, what do we see? Well, in the Old Testament, the principle was this, that singing was by priestly choirs serving under the ministry of a high priest. That was the pattern in the Old Testament when it came to the Lord's praise. Priestly choirs singing praise unto the Lord under the ministry of the high priest. And this is still the pattern in the New Testament, but there's some notable differences, right? Go to 1 Peter 2.9, okay? Some of you are like, New Testament, New Testament, New Testament. Okay, 1 Peter chapter two and verse nine. What I want you to see is scripture says that the category of priest, when we come into the New Testament, it expands to encompass now all of God's people. All of God's people are now priests. Here's one instance, and Peter here is actually using words from the book of Exodus, but 1 Peter 2 and verse 9, but you, just you Christians gathered. God's people, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, that all of God's people are priests. He goes on, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And part of that proclamation is singing praise unto the Lord. Look at Revelation chapter one. Go to Revelation one and verse six. Chapter one and verse six. This is, let me read the end of verse five, because it really goes with six in a way. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and because of that work, made us a kingdom, priests, there's that language again, to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So it's important for you to see this, that this category of priest has now been expanded to include all of God's people. And so I said the pattern is still the same, that singing, the ministry of praise, belongs to priestly choirs. It's just now that encompasses all of God's people, okay? So we are all to sing praise unto the Lord. That's why the reformers were so insistent on, what are we doing here? Just a small band is singing and God's people are quiet? And you see how, in the Roman church, where they believed that the minister was a priest, you see how this developed. And the reformers said, no, the minister's not a priest. All believers are priests in that we all have access to God. We can pray to him, we can go to him, even with boldness, and we can sing praises to him, and we should. So the congregation needs to praise the Lord, But who is our high priest? Well, our high priest is the one who was foreshadowed in the Old Testament by the ministry of the earthly high priest, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Hebrews chapter two, okay? Flip back just a little bit. Hebrews chapter two, and I wanna show you something there. Hebrews two, and this will be a quotation from Psalm 22. Now in Psalm 22, that's where we read the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And you will note that Jesus on the cross, he quotes from that Psalm, Psalm 22, that when he was doing the work that would make it possible for all of his people to be priests, he quoted from Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But there's another interesting verse for our purposes in Psalm 22 that the author of Hebrews picks up and says of the Lord Jesus in Hebrews chapter two and verse 12. And this is said of Jesus saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. Jesus, who fulfills Psalm 22, is the one ultimately speaking there, saying that he will sing the Lord's praise, but where does it say he will sing it? in the midst of the congregation. That when we gather every Lord's day, we gather as a kingdom of priests redeemed by the blood of the lamb to offer up the sacrifice of praise unto God. And we are being led by our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. who shed his blood to redeem us, and he sings the Lord's praise in the midst of his people." It's a beautiful picture to think about, okay? It's a wonderful thing to see. And what we're underscoring here is this notion of the priesthood of all believers, Hebrews 13, 5. Now, this priesthood of all believers, some have taken it and distorted it, and there's been misconceptions, and we don't have time to get into all that today, but what I want you to see today with this doctrine is that God is calling all of his people to praise him, all right? Hebrews 13 and verse five, and what is the counsel there? Oh, that is not right, I'm sorry. 15 is where I meant to go, look down at verse 15, through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Now notice those words, through him then, that is through Christ, through our great high priest. then let us, all of God's people, continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. That's the same language that's used. In 1 Chronicles, okay, in the book of Jeremiah, of the Levites who would offer up that sacrifice of praise, and yet all of God's people are to do it. All of God's people are to do it. Once you turn to Ephesians, we'll look at these two verses, and this'll be our last two verses here. Ephesians 5, just to underscore this, that the congregation is the choir, okay? Ephesians 519, and you've probably read and heard these words before, and we've had them in the class before, to show that this is something we should do in worship. Ephesians 519, addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Paul sang that to the congregation, to the congregation. And then you go over to Colossians, almost identical words, Colossians 3.16. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, go eat peach cobbler, you know that, okay. See, you're learning all kinds of things. Colossians 316, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thanksgiving in your hearts to God. Now, what's used there in the Greek, and I won't belabor this, but just to stress this point, is it's a reflexive pronoun, meaning that we know what this kind of usage is, so like if you said, If somebody said, I mailed something to myself, they're doing something and they're receiving something. It's the same idea here in Ephesians 5.19 and Colossians 3.16. And why is that word used? Because the assumption is that God's people are going to be the ones singing and they're going to be the ones hearing what is sung. So what's being implied there is we're not sitting and just listening, okay? That we're doing both. We're singing and then we're hearing each other sing praises to the Lord, that there is blessing and edification in hearing all the Christians around you singing God's praise, right? Singing God's praise. Now, Going back to that controversy, this has been really the issue in reform circles down to the present day. Is it psalms or is it hymns? In some ways, I would say that's a false choice. Is it psalms or hymns? I would say it's not an either or, it's a both and. But there are Presbyterian churches today that are exclusively psalm singing churches. There are entire denominations. Some of you know the name Rosaria Butterfield. She belongs to a denomination that they only sing the psalms. Here's one of the resources that they use. It's a fine resource. We have used it in our home for family worship. But this is all 150 Psalms right here, but with contemporary tunes, oftentimes, and so on and so forth. You may be surprised to hear this, but Presbyterians from Scotland into America, for most of Presbyterian history, sung only the Psalms, and they sang acapella. That's very surprising. When we hear that, acapella, we tend to think about what? Church of Christ is what we tend to think about, okay? But that was something that actually went back to the Reformation. Now, I'm not arguing for acapella only singing. I'm just saying that as a historical footnote, okay? But where we've gotten in our day is a place that many Christians would look at and scratch their heads, because we've gotten to the point where we are, in many ways, exclusive hymnody, okay? No psalm singing, which has really not been heard of in the history of the church, okay? Now, let me say this. As I've mentioned, we have, and many of the songs that we sing are rooted in the psalms, okay? When they put this together, the Trinity Hymnal, there was a desire to include some of those. But let me also, and I'm not plugging this product, but GCP, who puts out the Trinity Hymnal, they also put this out several years ago. It's called the Trinity Psalter Hymnal. So it's half psalms, 150 psalms, and then the back half is hymns. And this was a recognition, and there was much rejoicing when this was published, that there is a need to sing both, that God's people should sing psalms and hymns. Now, what's the benefit of singing psalms? Well, one of the benefits is you get, in a sense, the full counsel of God, that you sing about the grace and mercy of God. that you also sing about the judgment of God, okay? Which there are hymns that sing about both of those, right? That you are able to sing about rejoicing, but you're able to sing about lament as well. And we as God's people go through times where lament is very appropriate, and it's all in the book of Psalms. Let me speak to the benefit of singing from a hymnal, and this is not to say that only Churches that sing from hymnals are true churches, not what I'm saying at all. Let me lean into the recording a little bit. Not what I'm saying at all, okay? But. Anyone who has led music, and that's not me, would have to acknowledge that having to start from scratch at a place would be very difficult. So it is nice to have a resource, that a hymnal that's well put together, and many of them are, gives you roots so you have somewhat newer hymns. and then older hymns. One of the great things about this, when they put it together, is they put in things like, Speak, O Lord, and In Christ Alone, how great the Father's love for us, newer hymns. People are still writing hymns, and they're still writing some good hymns. But a hymnal can keep you rooted in the past, as well as being open to newer songs. There is substance, because so many of the older hymns The lyrics are almost devotional. They're so rich. We have to acknowledge that. Balance, in that it helps you avoid trends. Just, what is the latest and greatest song? What is everybody like? Let's do that one. That one may be a good one. But it keeps you balanced. What about songs? One of the things that I would say is, as you look at the history of the church, is that worship songs need to be singable and need to be durable. That means standing the test of time. There is a hymn in here that is called El Shaddai. It's by Michael Cardinal. It's a beautiful song. It's a terrible hymn. And it's a terrible hymn because it has a bunch of Hebrew words in it. And the reason I say it's a terrible hymn, I could never write anything like it, okay, because I have no musical ability at all. But people are gonna go silent. It's good at a Michael Card concert. It's not good as a congregational hymn. Does that make sense? So singability, durability, a hymnal, these things have been sifted through. And people have said, Christians have been able to sing these and sing them well. And these have stood the test of time. T. David Gordon, one of the initial RUF guys, he wrote a book entitled Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns. I don't know who Johnny is, but he apparently can't sing hymns. But one of his tests is if you take a song and you strip away the music and look at it, would it stand as devotional poetry? Many of the older hymns do pass that test, okay? And I would say there are many newer hymns that pass that test as well, but that's a good thing to think about. Because when you look at the verses in Ephesians and Colossians, there is a sense in which it's not just us hearing other people singing, but it's the content of what is being sung that is actually teaching, we're teaching each other. through song in addition to praising the Lord. And also, we have doxologies in Scripture. You find many of these in the book of Revelation. We won't turn there because of time. These are just little short things that we see in Scripture. We see long songs. like the Song of Moses, for example, okay, and the Book of Exodus. But we see these little things that we call doxologies. These have played a role in the history of the church. We sing the Gloria Patri at the end of every service. That goes back to the second century. That's a long time ago, okay, that's old. But it's just this short little theological praise unto God, and it's wonderful, okay? What about instruments, okay? Let me read this quote from R. Scott Clark, who's a church historian. He said, in the 11th and 12th centuries, Baldrick, the Archbishop of Dole, you guys are experts on Baldrick, I'm pretty sure. I don't know anything about Baldrick, but this is a great quote, argued that instruments should be used in worship in order to make worship more emotionally moving and interesting to the young. 11th and 12th centuries, nothing really changes with humans, okay? Now, what is surprising about that quote, really, is that they weren't really using instruments up until the 11th or 12th centuries. Now, once again, I'm not arguing against instruments, okay? Our music team, I would say, does a phenomenal job of using instruments that do what they are supposed to do, which is lead the congregation in singing God's praise, instead of them taking front center, that is the instruments. Because instruments, can impair congregational singing depending on the instrument. So that's the question. Do they assist or do they impair? And let me mention in this last bullet point the fad of organs. Organs were introduced into churches. You may be surprised to hear this initially by many as an appeal to the young, to keep the young in churches. You would never think that young people would be like, oh, they got an organ. I'm going over there. I got an organ. No, but that was the case, okay? But what was discovered, and look, I knew a lady who, she would perform organ concerts, all right? She was so talented. There can be beautiful music from an organ, but you know what? At those organ concerts, there was no singing. Organs are never used with choral groups. Why is that the case? Because they suppress singing, they dominate, they take over, okay? They take over, all right? And even in the 1800s, there was a Southern Presbyterian, Robert Louis Dabney, who was reviewing this book on instruments, and he goes into this tangent about organs. It's pretty funny to read, but you can tell, like, he is very concerned that if an organ is introduced, people are gonna stop singing because organs are loud. They're loud. They can be beautiful, but they're loud, okay? So this question is not just, this is not a question of do you like traditional, however you define that, worship. The question is, Are you promoting congregational singing or not? Because that is what we're called to do. Let me end with this. John Wesley gave some directions on singing. Now he gave more than this, but I just wanted to mention some of these. Sing lustily. Okay, so sing lustily today. And with good courage, beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength. And I love this last line. Be no more afraid of your voice now, nor more ashamed of its being heard than when you sung the songs of Satan in your heathen days. Okay. Whatever those were. John Wesley's Day, that's right. You want to know what were those? Sing modestly. Do not bawl so as to be heard above or distinct from, should say, the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony, the emphasis on congregational singing, unity of the body, but strive to unite your voices together so as to make one clear melodious sound. And then have an eye to God in every word you sing. And so we'll end on that note. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. So hopefully this was beneficial and kind of a little tour, Old Testament into New Testament, looking at a little history. Hopefully an appreciation for what even our team does to help us. Okay, they don't get in the way, they help us to help us praise the Lord each and every week, okay? But even thinking about as we sit in the sanctuary each week that God is calling, I can't sing, okay? Many of you can, but regardless, to raise our voices, to ascribe unto him the glory due his name, okay? God welcomes these praises because Christ is in the midst of the congregation praising the Lord, leading his people in worship. Do you really believe that? That's an amazing thing. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for such a privilege that you have given us to be able to sing your praise. We thank you that we can be called priests because Christ's blood has been shed, that we can draw near unto you with boldness, that we can bring unto you the ministry of praise, the sacrifice of praise. So help us to fix our minds upon you with every word that we sing. Help us to sing and even be reminded as we hear the voices of other believers that we are not alone in the Christian life, but that we are part of a body, the body of Christ, your church. So may you be glorified this morning in your praise. In Christ's name, amen.