So we are talking about what kind of music. we should use in church, and I'm being very specific there. We're talking about church. We're not talking about just in our general lives. Now, this is still part of the unpacking boxes series that we're doing, the what's of the church. And last time we considered what should comprise worship in the local church. What should comprise the worship services? And we saw that biblically. The core of worship is comprised of prayer, the ordinances, which includes baptism and the Lord's Supper. And when I say includes, those are the only two ordinances that our Lord has given to us. fellowship, which requires attendance, of course, and scripture. We should have all of these elements in a worship service. Without these elements, we can't say that we have a worshiping church. Now, that's not to say that we must always, for instance, have baptism. Obviously, we can't always have a baptism service every single Sunday. And again, it's not that we always have to have a communion service, although some churches do have that conviction that it should be every week. But if we don't have them every week, those should be the only real additions to the worship service, the regular worship service that we have. other than the music, of course, which we're going to be talking about. We shouldn't be adding in clown shows. We shouldn't be adding in all kinds of drama and everything else and still calling that a worship service. Now, we also talked a little bit about the word liturgy there. And as far as liturgy is concerned, we're talking about just simply the order of worship, the order of worship. And there should be a flow to the order of worship. It should highlight the gospel in some way, for instance, both for the unbelievers as well as for the believers. The liturgy should cause all to recognize their sin as well as their deliverance that comes through the grace of the gospel of our Lord. And so this should be something that is thought out, something that's prayerful sometimes, you'll see services where you have an element of the service that is focused on the acknowledgement, the confession of sin, and then an element of the service that is focused on the promises of the gospel. And this is done every single week so that there is an uplifting of the gospel message that is clear and understandable. It doesn't have to be in a wooden format. Don't mishear me. We don't want to make commandments where the Bible doesn't make commandments. We don't want to go beyond the teaching of scripture. And what does scripture say about worship services, the order of worship? It doesn't say anything about the order of worship. Should we have three songs, a sermon and then another song? Maybe it should be two songs and a prayer and another song and a sermon and then another song. There's the Bible is silent regarding that. And we don't necessarily have to follow the exact same format every single time. In fact, there are moments in the year where we might want to consider variations. such as special services. But worship services should be thoughtful about what Scripture does command, what Scripture says should be present, and how we should execute it, how to best wisely execute it. In fact, we do not do so simply to honor God, because we do believe that God is present in the worship service. There's that distinction of, you know, sometimes we think that we gather so that our corporate service will somehow reach the ears of God up there. And we fail to recognize that God is with us right here in our midst. We're not just reaching up to God. God is here and we are communing with him. That's why we call the Lord's Supper, for instance, communion, because we are communing with him and with one another. We understand that he is present. Now, that may not be what you think of when we talk about worship. All of this I've been saying, I've only briefly mentioned music, and you say, well, wait a minute, when I'm thinking about worship, I'm only thinking about music. And you wouldn't be alone with that. That's where a lot of people's minds go when we talk about worship. And in fact, you might start to think about the worship wars, and you might be thinking, is this what we're going to be talking about tonight? What is the worship wars? Well, you have churches that start to fight. Should we have traditional music, hymns, for instance? Should we have contemporary music? Maybe we need to have blended services. Maybe we need to have a an early morning service for the older people because they tend to rise earlier. And that will be our traditional service. And then we need to have a later service for all the younger people who like to sleep in. And that will be the contemporary service. That's what churches do. And of course, you know, in some cases, you end up with two different churches meeting in the same building because it's two very different approaches, two very different philosophies of ministry. Many churches do this, though, out of a desire to avoid conflict, a desire to avoid splits, and to try to keep everyone together as best as they can. In fact, some believe that music is the only point. when worship of the Lord is taking place. And that's why people get so heated about the subject, because we want to guard our worship of the Lord. We want to make sure that it's being done. And we have certain ideas, certain preferences in regards to how to do that best, how it should be done. So some I think that that's the only point. They prefer the preaching to be shorter in favor of longer music. As a result, others view music as a kind of filler for the service. They arrive late because all you're doing is the music. Up until that point, I'll arrive late, I'll get the sermon, which is what I really wanted, and then I'll leave early before we sing that last song. So we can skip all that. And then there are those in between. And if those are extremes, you know, some might be arguing about the circumstances of the worship service, whether it's too traditional or too contemporary. I didn't like the fact that we only sang two classic hymns this morning rather than three, you know, and I'm not saying this morning, but you understand I'm speaking hypothetically here. Why do Christians get so heated about this? Because music is emotional by nature. And many of us have had experiences leading to those preferences. It should be done this way rather than that way. Music is also done differently in churches throughout the world. So some think that any considerations that we might have to a local congregation might prove to be too restrictive, like we're putting God into a box and we're not letting him move. We need to have all kinds of different kinds of music up here. And so, again, some consider music to be the most important part of worship. You know, I was listening to Voddie Bauckham talk about this recently, and he said that Christians who are new to, say, the biblical exposition, preaching that comes straight from the Bible, or maybe the doctrines of grace. They might come and seek out churches like ours because they want to have that good teaching. They're new to it. They want to be in that environment. And they come for a while. But because they don't understand why we worship as we do, they begin to think about maybe attending other churches. And they may, and if we can catch them, if we can ask them, hey, I've noticed you haven't been attending worship lately. They may say, well, they've learned more here than anywhere else. It's a wonderful church where I really appreciate the teaching that's going on here. But the worship just wasn't scratching their itch. So they're choosing a church with better worship, by which they mean, of course, music that has the right feel to it. They're looking for something else. Because in the minds of so many Christians, worship occurs only when music evokes a certain feeling within them. And that's when worship happens. There's not this sense of here a little, there a little. There's not this sense of when we gather and we are in the service together and we sing together and we pray together and we hear the preaching of God's word together, that's all worship. Rather, they're looking for that certain experience. The music just isn't hitting it right. It's not rocking enough. It just doesn't have that same feel to it that they're looking for. And so this is a question of the circumstances of our music. Now music is not a question of worship that we can separate from the rest of worship. We have to think about it in line with everything else that we've studied. What do I mean? Well, just like with the rest of worship, Roman Catholicism had damaged the purpose of music in the worship service of the church. We're going to talk about that in detail here this evening. The Reformation tried to correct this. For instance, you had Martin Luther engaging in hymn writing. That was one of his first tasks. We'll talk more about that as well. Now, with every other element of worship, Scripture must direct our philosophy of worship music. That's why I say we can't think about this alone. This is not just a question of preference, although we have to acknowledge there is some subjectivity here. What we see in the Bible is an emphasis on music in worship, being that one of the most often repeated commands in scripture is that we must sing. Music is a part of worship. It is something that we should engage in. And the musical element of worship, much like our other elements, are meant to remind us of Christ and his gospel. And so we can draw four simple principles for our music. As we think about this from a biblical perspective, first, our music should be congregational. Our music should be congregational. It should second be edifying. It should be edifying. Third, it should be theological. It should be theological. And fourth, it should be artful. It should be artful. So let's think about each of those. And while we're doing that, let's go ahead and open up to the Book of Psalms. There are going to be a lot of references from Psalms tonight. But let's start with this. Biblical music should be congregational. Biblical music should be congregational. Simply put, music should be crafted so the whole congregation can sing it. It should be designed with the congregation in mind. Let's look at Psalm 111, Psalm 111. Psalm 111, verse one says this, praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart. So far, so good in the company of the upright and in the assembly. You see that it should be in the company of the people of God in the assembly. We should be worshiping together. We should be praising the Lord together. The singing should be corporate. And this is exactly the example we have in scripture where we see the people of God coming together. We're reading Psalms to just back up from the book of Psalms for a moment. That right there is the corporate worship of the people of Israel. Of course, we would apply that to us today as well because we are also the people of God in the Church of Christ. And so when we are looking at the Psalms, we are looking at corporate worship. We're looking at worship that unites the people of God. It should be corporate. It should be even simple enough for the common person to sing and to remember for later. The church usually, I mean, unless your church is in a very specialized location, usually you are not going to have a church comprised of professional singers. You're going to have a church comprised of regular people who work at various places, who do various jobs, some of whom the only time they sing is on Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings. That's it. And so we should remember that. We should remember that. We don't look to music that is going to be something that only someone with specialized vocal abilities can sing. We want music that the whole church can sing. This was a problem with the medieval church. I said Catholicism had damaged the worship in this way. And it had because the Roman church moved away from congregational singing. They moved away from it. Music became professional. They brought in trained choirs who could perform numbers for worship. Sometimes we have special music. That's all they had was special music. In fact, churches with wealthy patrons would present complex polyharmonies. They would just have these songs, and I'm not saying they weren't beautiful songs. Some of them are beautiful. We still have access to some of these songs. It's still preserved for us, obviously, a lot of these songs. A lot of them are inarguably beautiful and touching and moving. but they failed to meet this biblical standard for worship. You say, why? Because it's choir? No, not because it's a choir. The Bible has choirs. For instance, we read about a 4,000-member choir of the Levites in 1 Chronicles 23. 4,000-member choir. Now, that's quite the choir right there. And that's obviously for the temple worship. Even so, special music also isn't necessarily worship when it's done for the sake of entertainment. Even if it's beautiful, even if it's a theological arrangement, if the congregation is passive in such situations, it may not be that Or if there's only one person singing and everyone else is listening, it may be moving in a sense, but it's not necessarily something that we're engaging in. And so it's not, by definition, corporate worship. This is why, as it's often said, singing is the most common command of scripture. We should all be singing. I'm not saying we shouldn't have special numbers, but what I am warning about is this move that we see in history away from corporate worship to a more entertainment-driven worship. This is why many churches in Europe kept the choir but placed it in the rear of the church. I've been a Christian for years before I had heard of this. The churches would have a balcony in the back, the balcony in my church when I grew up, that was where the kids ran and they went up into the balcony so they could goof off and not be noticed by other people. The balcony in these churches was constructed for the choir. They say, well, that's weird because if the choir's up in the balcony, I mean, how do you look at them when they're singing? I mean, do you turn around and look? No, you don't look at them at all. That's the point. That was the point. This isn't a performance that they are putting on. Acoustically, this worked really well. If the choir was singing a special number, And it would also work well as the choir is doing what we say that a choir should be doing, leading the church in worship. It's behind the church, and it's singing, and the church hears it, and the church is being swept along, and it's also singing, and we're all involved in the worship service then. You say, well, who is up front? Usually the pastor. And the pastor may not be a professional singer. But the pastor would introduce the music. He would explain why it's an important piece, or what the meaning is, or how that text might lead into the text of Scripture that he was talking about, or that he would be talking about. And then when the music started, his voice just became one of many. One of many. He wasn't up front holding a microphone with everyone else just sitting quietly and listening to him and saying, oh, what a great singer he is. This way, people were not looking at the musicians during the worship, but rather they were looking to the Lord. Now, of course, most churches today in the United States do not have this kind of construction in mind, especially newer builds. You would have to find really old churches to find a choir loft. You don't typically find that. And most churches today, as they are designed and built, they are built with the idea that the sanctuary should be a multipurpose room. We could have a rock concert in here. We could have this. We could have that going on in here. The choir, if there is a choir, is usually placed up front in a large stage area. I'm not saying that's necessarily sinful because the Bible doesn't say where the choir has to be placed. I'm just saying that there is a different philosophy, a different mindset with that. The choir needs to be up front so we can see them. And inherently, that becomes more of a performance. And then churches, as we've moved probably past the 90s, I really haven't seen many churches that's kept the choir. A lot of churches have moved to just a lot of microphones up on stage with drums and with guitars. And you have a praise band up front. But really, that's the same idea, praise bands up front so we can see them. And there is suggested there an entertainment-driven worship. There's suggested there entertainment-driven worship. In fact, some churches will even have mood lights that they add in. They will add in fog machines and laser shows and all the rest, and then soon it's very clear exactly what's happening here. Those are some of the worst offenders, of course. And they might be playing music that's typically played on the radio. And I don't necessarily mean secular music, although there are those churches that do that as well. They'll play secular music up front. I could say a few things about that, but I won't. But even with some of the music that you hear on the radio that's Christian in variety, you might have that music being a little too high. singing a little too high for most, say, men in the congregation or too low for some of the women in the congregation. It may have a voice range or maybe dips from too low to too high. And it's obviously meant to show off the vocal abilities of the performer. And it's not something that the average congregant can join in with comfortably. Most of these churches, though, they correct that by cranking up the sound of the instrumentation to the concert level decibels, so it doesn't matter if the congregation is joining in or not. You could be singing at the top of your lungs. You could be singing off key and out of sync with the music, and nobody else can hear you, so it doesn't matter. Or you could be just standing there quietly. And nobody can hear you or see you because the lights are low and the mood lights are going on up front. So it doesn't really matter if you're singing or not. This has helped to create that industry of worship entertainment that we have today. Now, some churches try to correct for that issue. They recognize, no, the music does need to be congregational, so they'll have more subdued instrumentation. I'm not saying that the presence of a guitar or a drum set on the stage is grounds for leaving a church. That's not at all what I'm saying. because the Bible does talk about stringed instruments and drums. I'm not saying that necessarily it's a good thing either. We would have to talk about what it is, but if the music is turned down and the people are encouraged to sing along, that's at least better. That's a lot better of a focus. We don't want to apply unbiblical restrictions on such choices. The important point is that the music is singable by the general congregation. And so even with the more subdued instrumentation, what songs are they choosing? Are they choosing songs that can be sung by people? Now, this is why I typically do like hymnal music, because it's written with the general public in mind. A lot of the songs that are, and when I say songs, I mean the music behind the lyrics, a lot of that has been crafted for general audiences, not for specialized musicians. Now, sometimes you'll see the music have special choir endings where the choir can do trills and, you know, go high or low. You have those soprano women hitting those high notes and holding them out, and you have those men with the bass. in their voices, just giving depth and weight to the song. Yes, of course, you can have that as well. But typically, hymnal music is designed with that in mind. Pop music is not designed with that in mind. And so that is something that we must keep in our minds as we're thinking about what kind of music we should have in the church. Is it congregational? Is it congregational? We should also be asking ourselves, is it edifying? Is it edifying? Because if the music is. Not to be entertainment driven, but rather singable. And it should be sung with the edification of believers in mind. Let's let's consider what Paul has to say about worship briefly here. First Corinthians. Obviously, this is a passage. First Corinthians 14. This is a passage, obviously, about. Tongues and spiritual gifts, and we could go off on a tangent about that. But let's consider some things that he says about the worship service here. Let's look at verse seven. He says, yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, How will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? For if the bugle produces an undistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? Now he's talking about being clear in our worship, and we know that because he goes on in verse nine, he says, so also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, How will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air. There are perhaps many or great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning. If I then do not know the meaning of the language, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. In other words, we need to speak with clarity. Now, obviously, this is very applicable, directly applicable to tongue speaking. But he's also giving this in context of worship service. Worship services should be clear and intelligible. Why? For the edification of all involved. If I'm up here and I'm speaking in a tongue, I might feel like there's a lot of worship going on, but you might be just sitting there just scratching your head saying, what's going on? What is he saying? Sounds like a barbarian. He sounds like a lunatic. What's going on? Look down to verse 19. In the church, I desire to speak five words with my mind so that I may instruct others also rather than 10,000 words in a tongue. And the idea there is the unknown tongue, the tongue that is not known. And so I'm speaking in English right now. And if I were to switch languages, if I were to speak in Spanish, maybe Jorge could understand me. The odds are probably that he could not because I don't speak Spanish very well. And by very well, I mean not hardly at all. But the rest of you definitely, if you don't speak Spanish, I should say, would not understand, right? Now, that's the idea here. The edification should be at the forefront of our minds. The edification of the saints. Worship should be clear. It should be executed in an attitude of the one another's of scripture. Look down to verse 26. What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. Now I know some are of the idea that he's just laying out what worship looked like in the early church and everyone just kind of brought something. I don't think that he's necessarily saying this is a good thing. Everybody has their own thing that they're bringing because it's disorderly. He goes on to say in verse 40, all things must be done properly and in an orderly manner. there are people who were bringing confusion because of all the different things, including the different kinds of Psalms. We could say the different kinds of music that they were bringing into the service. And so that is giving us an idea of exactly the attitude that is what's wrong with, in fact, modern worship. Philippians 4.8 says, Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The musical content should reflect what is honorable and right and pure and lovely for the sake of those who listen. It should be of good repute, which eliminates some worldly styles that's widely recognized in our culture, for better or for worse, as associated with rebellion and criminal activities. We don't just bring up any kind of music up here. We make our choices based on what is going to be good for the hearers, what is going to provide clarity for the hearers. And if the focus is a Christian brotherhood in the church, then the pragmatic argument that we should change our music style and content to attract unbelievers is unbiblical. We don't need to put on rock concerts in our services every single Sunday morning to try to bring in unbelievers into the church. Why are we making worship an excuse to entertain the ghosts when scripture clearly is telling us that it's supposed to be for the edification of the sheep? And so music must be chosen with edification in mind, and specifically edification of the believers. There may be a number of well-meaning Christians providing their unique voices on the radio or in conferences, bringing up a lot of different kinds of music, different musical genres that are perhaps beneficial to reaching the lost. I'm not saying that that can never be. Obviously, God uses a lot of different means to bring people to himself. But what we're talking about is worship within the local church. not worship at a conference, not worship on the radio, or worship at a music hall somewhere, or at a concert hall to bring people in. We're talking about worship with the assembly of God's people. And we need to keep all of God's people in mind. You say, well, why are you harping on this so much? I mean, what would be an example of not doing this? There was a young music leader who had been to a lot of these conferences, and he had seen the worship there, and he was really enjoying that worship. And he wanted to bring it into the church. And so he said, yeah, we're going to we're going to start to have more upbeat styles in the congregation. And before long, we're going to have the drums up on the stage and we're going to have the guitars up on the stage. We're going to have all of that because I've been I've seen it. It can be done well. We're going to have that. And when someone said, you know, a lot of the people in the congregation are not going to appreciate that. He said something along the lines of, well, they'll learn to like it. Now that's someone who's not focused on the edification of the saints. That's someone who's focused on his own personal preferences. They'll learn to like it. No, we need to do music that we can all sing together. Ephesians 4.2, we're called to show tolerance for one another in love. Now, sometimes that means that we're gonna do some songs that maybe not everybody appreciates as much as they appreciate some other music, but we're all showing tolerance for one another. Philippians 2, 3 says, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not look merely out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. God directs the Christian conscience. And so music should be chosen with his people in mind. Now we can apply this to the liturgy itself. I mentioned this briefly earlier, but now with all of this in mind, we can bring our musical choices into how we plan our services. And I'm sure this is already being done quite a bit here. We see that As people are coming into church, for instance, they are distracted. They've had car issues on the way, you know, money issues. They've had whatever. They get into the church. They're distracted. Sunday morning, Sunday evening. And they. Are there because they want to. learn something about God. They just need to know that God still loves them. They need to know God's grace is something. They're there for edification. So what do we do? Typically, with our first song, we want something that's rousing, something that is a call to worship, something that will push away all of those distractions, something that will help focus the whole congregation on the task that is before us. Then we might want a song that speaks of our condition, our need for Christ. And following that, we might wanna sing a song that reminds us of gospel truths. something that calls us to Scripture, something that points us there, especially as we're preparing for the preaching of the Word. Maybe even a song of confession or a phrase directly to God. And then after the sermon, there's typically a hymn of invitation, why, for the congregation to apply the teaching of God's Word to their hearts. See, this is all thought out. This should be all thought out. This should all be planned out ahead of time as we're thinking about this. How should it be? Why? Because we want people to be edified. We want people to be edified. And we also want them to be able to sing along, so we want the music to be congregational as well. But if we want them to be edified, then the music should also be theological. It should also be theological. I remember once asking a pastor if music should be theologically accurate. I was stunned. He said no. No. He said theology has no place in worship music. Wow, okay. Well, he had this this idea that worship is music. And that idea I was talking about earlier, worship is music. It's not the teaching. The teaching is something else. Maybe the music builds to the teaching and then you have the teaching time. But the worship is the worship. He he saw the worship is is just music. You're singing music. And sadly, that sometimes means mindlessly repetitive music that could last for an hour or longer. The music itself. Well, church music can and should certainly be biblical. The Book of Psalms is the inspired hymn book for God's people, as we've said, and we're studying them on Wednesday nights. And some of the music we sing are either psalm-based or inspired by the psalms. For instance, this morning, what did we sing? We sang Martin Luther's A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Well, that's based on Psalm 46. We sang earlier, all people that on earth do dwell, as I said then, it's based on Psalm 100. So we do sometimes sing this kind of music and we should. The church even would often have psalters that would go along with their hymnals. So they would be able to sing these together as well. And so sometimes the worship order might say hymn number this, Psalter number that. And so you would know which book to grab. In fact, some of the hymnals that were printed in America used to contain both metrical versions of the Psalms as well as theologically adept hymns and spiritual songs so that everyone would have them in the colonies here and in the United States. But they eventually began adopting, over time, more and more camp and revival music. They dropped the psalms altogether. This arose in part because of the increasing desire among the American people, and perhaps people elsewhere, for emotionalism in music. Moreover, some of these songs inevitably became a vehicle for false theology. Now, there have been some good songs that have been written in the more recent past, but the desire for emotional content over truth has grown, and we see more and more music like that today. In fact, not just in worship music, in Christian music in general. Nearly all of the big recognizable Christian bands from the 90s, at least recognizable to me because that's when I was paying more attention to them in the 90s, they have undergone some controversy for the positions that the performers now hold. Even in that decade, you might recall the controversy over Amy Grant. She drew criticism, having a foot in the world as well as in the church. She suffered a very public or underwent a very public divorce. And she's since now become an advocate for LGBTQ plus issues. Kevin Max of DC Talk. made a very public deconstruction of his faith, no longer calling himself a Christian, but an exvangelical. See, instead of an evangelical, he's an exvangelical, no longer Christian. We could continue on to note specifically the shallowness of the theology of a lot of Christian music. It's a little surprise that the leading artists expressed vapid opinions concerning the church and scripture. This is no less true in music that is written specifically for praise and worship. One popular band out there is called Jesus Culture. It originated in Bethel Church in Reading, California. This is a church that promotes faith healing. The band leaders have shared their personal visions of Jesus. Many of which, all of which really border on the heretical, some of the things that they've said. And again, affected by the culture, the church shared a post in 2019 that they love those who identify as LGBTQ+, those who, quote, feel fulfilled and happy as you are. And that post went on to condemn any Christian ministry that would seek to change who people are. Now see, we love LGBTQ plus people as well, but we love them specifically by saying there is hope in Christ to change. And that is love. It's not loving to allow a person to stay in that lifestyle. But that's a sermon for another day. We could go on with this Christian music scene, Stephen Furtick's Elevation Church and its elevation music. It's connected to the SBC, but that hasn't stopped them from promoting the word faith heresy. Hillsong, another popular church and a worship industry all of its own, been around for years and years now, has many of the same theological problems. Now, of course, its leaders are under investigation for various scandals and crimes. The repetition in such music that we see is indicative of the surface level nature of their lyrics. There is nothing of depth in that kind of music. Music isn't wrong just because it has some repetition. We joke about the 7-11 songs, you know, seven words repeated 11 times. We joke about that, but You know, Psalm 136, for instance, repeats, His loving kindness is everlasting over and over and over and over again. It's not wrong because it's repetitious. It's wrong because it's shallow. There's not theological depth to it. And music becomes wrong for the church when it ignores sound teaching. All music should be theologically accurate and commensurate with the work of the pulpit ministry. You might recall that famous quote by Martin Luther. He said that music is the handmaiden of theology and second only to theology. Let's look at Psalm 119 for a moment. Psalm 119 and verse 54. That is not the same verse I have here. I have the wrong verse down. I apologize. Let me go ahead and read it to you and you can hit control F on your electronic Bible here and find it. It is your statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. Think about that your statutes talking to God your statutes his law are my songs." Think about that, turning God's statutes into songs. Oh, yes, I was looking at the wrong verse. Okay. Yes, your statutes are my songs. He didn't have to search very far for that. I don't know why my eyes shifted from verse 54, but there it is. Your statutes are my songs in the house of my privilege in the house of my pilgrimage. Our songs should be based on God's Word. They should be. Of course, we shouldn't expect that everything written today will be perfect. You know, it's easy to cast stones sometimes. There are bands out there that are trying to do well. Is every song they produce a winner? No. Is every sermon I preach a winner? No. That's just the way it is. And what's going to happen is we're going to just keep the good ones and we'll throw out the bad ones. Or the ones that are maybe just somewhere in between, they'll just pass out of disuse. That's usually how it goes. Your hymnals, whether you're looking at the Baptist hymnal or the hymns of grace, we have so many thousands upon thousands of songs in church history to choose from. Some songs are selected. Some songs are excluded. Some other hymnals pick up some songs that other hymn that the verse hymnals ignored. And then slowly over time, we see that the church isn't isn't singing some songs anymore. Sometimes it's because the church is moving away ideologically from that. And sometimes it's just there's better music to choose from. There's just better music. And so it doesn't have to be perfect. Nothing produced by man will be perfect. We keep the good ones. We throw out the bad. But we also have this oft-ignored resource of Scripture. We have the Psalms, for instance. And the Psalms, by the way, those are not the only places we can turn for music in Scripture. We can find music elsewhere in Scripture. I love to sing, for instance, the Lord's Prayer sometimes. That's not even music necessarily, but it is a wonderful song. We should sing the Psalms as well as the hymns and spiritual songs that we have that are good. You say, what are the ones that are good? The ones that reflect the truth of Scripture. So music should be theological. It should be edifying. It should be congregational. One last point. It should be artful. It should be artful. You know, one of the questions of, one of the questions of contention in the Reformation was the exact same one that we have today. Style. Style. Because the Roman Catholic Church was putting on big productions sometimes, some wanted something more simple. Some churches would keep the organs, for instance. Others would remove, like for instance, the Puritans, they removed their organs from the churches. Now, it's not because they hated music. It's not because they hated organs even. In fact, some of them would take the organ out of the church and put it into their house. They still loved the music, but they didn't think it had a place in the worship of God. They wanted to have something that was more simple. especially considering what the Roman Catholic Church was doing. They wanted to avoid any ostentatious displace. And even today, you'll meet people who push for acapella music alone, no instrumentation whatsoever, not even a piano, just only voices. And that's all we should have. Now, scripture does call for instrumentation in the Psalms, so it does seem like it's overkill, but I can understand the thought process behind it. Others believed it was acceptable to have instrumentation, but pared down by comparison. which is why the organ has become such a mainstay in protestant churches and then of course later pianos because the organ could do a lot it could produce a lot of different sounds and then the piano obviously as well as it has a has a great range on it now When we look at scripture, we do see justification for instrumentation. The Psalms, as I said, were to be sung with instrumentation. We could look at Psalm 150, for instance. Psalm 150, some of you already know what I'm talking about with this. Praise the Lord, praise God in His sanctuary, praise Him in His mighty expanse for His mighty deeds. We get down to verse three, praise Him with trumpet sound, with harp, and with lyre, with timbrel, and dancing, wow, dancing, and stringed instruments, and pipe, with loud cymbals, with resounding cymbals. So yes, there can be instrumentation. In Solomon's Temple, again, 1 Corinthians 23, verses three through five talk about the musicians that were hired there, brought in. 4,000 were praising the Lord with instruments which David made for giving praise. That was in Solomon's Temple. And after the Ark of the Covenant was brought in, this praise service was followed by the glory of the Lord filling his house. He was pleased with this. Zerubbabel's Temple also employed musicians from among the Levites for the task of leading worship. That's in Nehemiah 12, 46 and 47. that these Levites were dedicated for this task communicates both the theological and an artful commitment in their instrument and music. In Psalm 33, three, we read that we should play skillfully with a shout of joy. Notice that skillfully. Even with that, even with what we've said about music being congregational and simple. skillfully means that this is not amateur hour. It's not amateur hour. We should seek to do it as well as possible. Now, some churches, you don't have any professionals, and that's fine. That's fine. You just do it as well as you can. You don't throw it together at the last minute. You pray about it. You practice. Regardless of how much Someone might claim God's call is upon them to provide special music for the next Sunday morning service. God has already called us to conduct our music as well as possible. Everything the Lord does is good. So excellence in music reflects his attributes. You say, well, excellence in music and art, this is all subjective. That's true. There is some subjectivity to this. But there are also guidelines that are pretty clear. The Christian Reformed Psalter Hymnal explains it this way. The music of the church should be beautiful. Its religious thought or spirit should be embodied appropriately in the poetry as poetry, in the music as music, and in the blending of these in song. It should satisfy the aesthetic laws of balance, unity, variety, harmony, design, rhythm, restraint, and fitness, which are all the conditions of all art. In other words, artful music should be done well. And so the instrumentation should be chosen with this in mind. The lyrics should be chosen with this in mind. And by the way, that means that when we're doing the instrumentation, the instrumentation isn't overpowering the lyrics. but it also matches what should be sung. Any music we sing should be artful and in line with the rest of scripture. So let's wrap this up. These are just some of the biblical principles to consider when choosing music for the church. Now, I don't know if... lead you to believe that I was going to tell you exactly what songs you should and shouldn't choose. But that's beyond my ability to do. We can't do that. But we can point out the guidelines here. And the theme running through Scripture is this, music is to be sung to the Lord. God isn't just the subject of our music, although He is sometimes. He's also the object of our corporate worship. And in fact, we need his spirit for fruitful works, scripture says, so everything about our music must be ultimately about him. But it is important to note that music alone doesn't equal worship. And the Bible does give this warning, because if your heart is far from the Lord, it doesn't matter if you're singing it out to him. Amos 521 and 23 says I hate this is God speaking. I hate I reject your festivals nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies and he goes on to say take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not even listen to the sound of your hearts. Our heart must be in the right place during worship. True worship at that point starts with repentance, not with an external show of spirituality, regardless of how emotional you may feel the result to be. All worship should be reformed, which is to say God glorifying and biblical. This isn't just a philosophy for music or Sunday morning services either. It also applies to our other services, wedding services, memorial services, and any other type of worship service. So may our worship, wherever we're doing it, however we're doing it, may it remain decent and in order, always pointing our eyes to Christ.