So, in 1 Chronicles chapter 25, we're continuing the layout of David's kingdom.
Remember, the book of 1 Chronicles is all about King David, and these final chapters
of the book are going through how his kingdom is ordered.
And the priests were gone over in the previous chapter, different porters, different people
who had different functions in his kingdom, officers, judges, things of that nature.
And in this passage of scripture, we're looking at a lot of musicians, okay?
Now look at verse number 1 of chapter 25.
Moreover, David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph
and of Heman and of Juduthan, who should prophesy with harps, with saltaries, and with cymbals,
and the number of the workmen according to their service was.
And then he goes through this list of the sons of Asaph, Zachar, and Joseph, and Nethaniah,
and Azariah, the sons of Asaph, under the hands of Asaph, which prophesied according
to the order of the king.
Jump down to the end of verse 3.
It says, who prophesied with a harp to give thanks and to praise the Lord.
So over and over again in these first few verses, we see that they are prophesying with
the harp.
They are prophesying with other musical instruments.
So we can see how important music is in the service of the Lord because, first of all,
we see that there's someone who's in charge of handling it and making sure that it all
goes right.
And then we also see that certain people are chosen and separated to do this work.
It's considered very important.
And in fact, thousands of people are given these jobs involving praising the Lord through
music.
Now, the Bible puts a great emphasis on music.
Even in 1 Chronicles itself, we've already seen other chapters that emphasize this and
that talked about people serving the Lord with music night and day.
At this time, when King David was reigning, there was actually music being sung and played
24 hours a day at the temple of the Lord.
Literally day and night, they were taking shifts so that praises were being sung to
God around the clock at that time.
And today, in the world that we live in, praises are being sung to God also around the clock
because of the time change and people live all over different parts of the world, churches
are having different services at all different times, or even just individuals or groups
are singing and praising God throughout the week.
I know I sing hymns to God almost every day of my life.
And I know many other people are the same way.
The Bible puts a big emphasis on music, on singing praises to God.
If you don't believe me, what's the book that you land on if you just open your Bible
in the dead center?
The book of Psalms, which is a song book.
Not only that, it has more chapters than any other book.
It's right there with Jeremiah for being the longest book.
Psalms and Jeremiah, they're about the same length, but Psalms has more chapters.
Huge book.
The longest book in the Bible, by some measures, is the book of Psalms, and it's a song book.
And all throughout the Old Testament, there are passages like this that put great emphasis
on singing and music and praising the Lord and musical instruments and so forth.
So let me just point out some things about this passage.
First of all, he said that they prophesied with harps.
They prophesied when they're singing.
Well, what does it mean to prophesy?
To prophesy means to proclaim the word of God.
And usually, the word prophesy is used synonymously with preaching in the Bible.
Even when the New Testament says prophesied, it means preaches.
And also in the Old Testament, you'll see that same interchanging of those two words.
Well, we need to understand that when we sing hymns, it's sort of like a sermon being preached
in a sense.
Okay?
The Bible says teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
So when we sing hymns or songs or spiritual songs, people are actually being taught the
word of God.
They're actually being taught biblical doctrine whether they know it or not.
And this is why it's very important that we make sure that the songs that we sing are
doctrinally sound.
We don't want to sing songs that are filled with false doctrine and error because we are
drilling those things into our head.
And we are being taught and we are being admonished, we are being prophesied to through the music.
And so we need to understand that.
And by the way, the world has a lot of things that they're teaching and prophesying and
admonishing through their music.
You know, you turn on the rap music, what are they preaching about?
What are they prophesying about?
What are they teaching about?
You know, wickedness, drunkenness, drugs, being a whoremonger, whatever.
And so, you know, we need to be careful with the music that we listen to and especially
we need to be careful with spiritual music that we're not listening to music filled
with heresy giving us bad doctrine, okay.
You don't want to just think, oh, it's Christian, anything goes.
That could be very dangerous when we're singing songs that have bad doctrine.
Now, the hymnal that we use here is the soul-stirring songs and hymns.
It's published by the sword of the Lord.
Basically it's published by independent fundamental Baptists.
Now, all of the songs of the hymnal are not doctrinally sound, but over 90% of them, well
over 90% of them are right on.
I've personally gone through the hymnal and identified certain songs.
I read every song in the hymnal and I identified which ones were not doctrinally sound.
And so in our project where we're going through and recording all the hymns, we're skipping
anything that's not doctrinally sound.
And in fact, why don't I just show you a few examples.
I didn't plan on doing this, but I might as well just show you a few different examples
of songs that we skipped when we were going through and recording the songs at the beginning
of the hymnal.
There were a couple that we skipped and again, I'm doing this off the cuff.
So these are some songs that I skipped because I felt like, and here's the thing, even if
the author didn't have a bad intent, I feel like these songs send the wrong message is
what they do.
So song number eight in the hymnal, I'm Coming to the Cross.
Let me just read the lyrics to you and let's see if we can figure out why I ditched this
song.
I'm coming to the cross.
I am poor and weak and blind.
I'm counting all but dross.
I shall full salvation find.
I'm trusting Lord in thee, blessed lamb of Calvary.
Humbly at thy cross I bow.
Save me, Jesus, save me now.
Long my heart has sighed for thee.
Long has evil reigned within.
Jesus sweetly speaks to me, I will cleanse you from all sin, and then the chorus again.
Here I give my all to thee, friends and time and earthly store, soul and body thine to
thee, holy thine forevermore.
And then the chorus, he says, save me now, save me.
This is like a workspace salvation.
If the chorus keeps saying over and over again, save me, Jesus, save me now, and in between
it's saying things like, oh, I'm going to give up everything for you.
I'm giving my whole life.
No, no, no.
God gave his life for us.
We don't give our life to him.
We don't have to give up our friends and time and earthly store to be saved.
We don't have to give him everything.
So this kind of sends the wrong message, doesn't it, about what salvation is.
Verse number four, in thy promises I trust, now I feel the blood applied.
I'm prostrate in the dust.
I am with Christ.
I'm crucified.
You know, that's all stuff for later.
When you get saved, you're not crucified with Christ.
You know, I die daily.
Paul was crucified with Christ because he's living for Christ.
He gave up things later.
We gave up things later.
That's a daily thing of picking up the cross and following Jesus.
But when it comes to being saved, they're mixing works with free salvation by grace.
So you can see why we don't want to sing that song.
It's just a song.
Yeah, but we don't want to impress that doctrine in the minds of our young people or even into
our own minds.
Now Room at the Cross for You, song number nine, we didn't do this one either.
And this is a pretty popular song.
I've sung it many times, but verse two was the deal breaker for me.
Though millions have found him a friend and have turned from the sins they have sinned.
And again, it's about what?
It's about getting saved.
The Savior still waits to open the gates and welcome a sinner before it's too late.
So what does that imply?
That you've got to turn from the sins you've sinned in order to be welcomed at the gate.
Well guess what?
We're all doomed then because we're all sinners.
We've all come short of the glory of God.
And there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sineth not.
And that doesn't say, oh that's before you're saved.
You know the sinless perfection crowd will tell you, oh that's before you're saved.
No, there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sineth not.
There isn't one.
Well that's it.
No, no, no.
There isn't one.
Saved, unsaved, there isn't one.
There isn't any, okay?
The apostle Paul talked about struggling with sin.
Are you better than him?
He said, I'm carnal, sold under sin.
Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
And so the Bible says if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is
not in us.
And you know why it says we deceive ourselves?
Because we're the only ones stupid enough to believe that because everybody around us
knows we're a sinner.
We're only tricking one person, ourself, if we think that we have no sin.
Because mom knows we have sin, dad knows we have sin, our spouse knows we have sin, our
children know we have sin, et cetera, et cetera.
So you know I'm not going to go through a whole bunch of these.
I'm just showing you just a little sampling of hey these are a few songs that we skip
and here's why we skip them because we take it seriously.
We want to make sure that the songs we sing are doctrinally sound.
And you know what I like about the songs in our hymnal is that many of them are very deep
doctrinally.
They've got some great doctrine.
You know they really drive in great points on salvation.
Now most of them are right.
It was just a few bad ones.
Most of them really drive in that salvation is by faith alone.
Most of them drive in the fact that you can't lose your salvation.
They drive in great doctrines about the Trinity and all kinds of wonderful things in the hymnal.
And so it's important that we sing doctrinally sound songs.
And another thing that I think is very important because what are we talking about?
First Chronicles 25, prophesying through music, right?
Singing with the harp and the psaltery and the timbrel and all these different things.
Well, what about singing the psalms, okay?
You know we've been singing through a lot of the psalms.
We've put, I don't know, eight or nine of them to music that we've been singing in church.
And let me tell you something.
This is something that's late in coming.
We should have grown up with this, okay, those of us who grew up in church.
But unfortunately, the independent fundamental Baptists of the last generation, they didn't
really sing a lot of psalms.
They sang very few.
And I think this is really important because as great as our hymnal is, there are certain
subjects that it just doesn't touch.
Whereas the book of Psalms that God wrote, boy, he covers everything.
I mean, such a broad spectrum of subject matter.
Think about, for example, Psalm 11 that we sing, right?
And in that psalm that we sing, it says, the wicked and him that loveth violence, his
soul hateth.
You're not going to find a song in that hymnal about God hating certain people.
But you're going to find it in God's songbook.
You'll find it in Chapter 5, and then you'll find it again in Chapter 11.
And you'll find all throughout psalms very negative songs, cursing songs, imprecatory
songs.
You're not going to find those in any hymnal.
So we want to make sure that we sing the songs that God wrote because he covers all
the bases.
Amen?
Now, some people, they go to the opposite extreme of, we should only sing psalms.
That is wrong.
The Bible says, sing unto the Lord a new song.
The Bible says, sing to him in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
And so we should include all of those things.
The fundamental Baptists of the previous generation, they did sing some psalms.
They just didn't do it that often.
But there were some psalms that were sung, like, for example, we would sing that song
unto thee, O Lord.
Does anybody remember singing that growing up about, man, alive, like four people?
Good night.
Five people.
Unto thee, O Lord.
And one group would do the echo.
Unto thee, O Lord.
Do I lift up my soul?
All right.
We got a couple more hands going up.
Now who knows it?
All right.
Now it's like 30 people.
Unto thee, O Lord.
And then, so we would sing that one.
And then there was a Psalm 1 that was put, blessed is the man that walketh on in the
counsel of the ungodly.
So there were certain ones that we would sing.
But I'm glad that we've been able to increase that in our church and start singing more
psalms on a regular basis and singing psalms like Psalm 11 that maybe would make some of
our independent brethren squirm in their seat a little bit about that part about, you know,
God hating people and stuff like that that love violence.
So anyway, it really gets us into some great doctrine.
Like this psalm that we sung tonight, Psalm 81, if you still have that sheet handy, there
is some great doctrine in here.
I mean, you pretty much have the Romans 1 of the Old Testament here at the end of Psalm
81.
Did you pick up on that?
Because he's basically explaining how they didn't want God's counsel.
They didn't want to hear God.
They don't want to retain God in their knowledge.
And they're haters of God and everything like that.
So it's a really interesting passage that really has a lot of parallels with Romans
1.
But it was also a great rebuke of Calvinism because, you know, Calvinism teaches basically
that, you know, God just picks certain people that are the elect and everybody else is doomed
and it's all up to him.
But I like what it says at the end here when it says the haters of the Lord should have
submitted themselves unto him.
Their time should have endured forever.
He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey.
Out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.
What's he saying?
Hey, it could have been different for you, buddy.
You could have believed on Christ.
Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life for you.
Yeah, these people hate God.
Yeah, these people are doomed and being destroyed.
But you know what?
It shouldn't have been that way.
It could have been different.
I mean, there's a lot of great doctrine.
I mean, this is a lot more rich doctrinally than our God is an awesome God.
And you know what?
You could sing that if you're Muslim.
You could sing that as a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness or a Catholic.
And you know what?
These songwriters are doing that on purpose because you know what they want to do?
Sell albums.
They want to be on K-Love Christian radio.
They don't want to offend people.
They don't want to have songs that are really strong on doctrine, really strong on the Trinity
or strong on not losing your salvation or strong on salvation by faith or talking about
God wiping people out or sending them to hell or people or reprobates or whatever.
They don't want that.
But you know what?
God does because that's the songbook that he gave us.
And I do believe in writing new songs, but I think we should take lessons from the ultimate
songwriter, the Holy Spirit.
And in the book of Psalms, you've got some great material there that covers all different
subject matter.
A lot of this contemporary Christian music or what's known as CCM, it's about as deep
as a Frisbee in its doctrine.
It's very shallow, okay?
And it's meant to be trans-denominational or inter-denominational.
And if you want to see what's wrong with this music, just look at the pictures of the people
who are performing it.
You got a bunch of long-haired dudes when the Bible says it's a shame for a man to have
long hair.
You got a bunch of scantily clad women.
You got a bunch of dudes that look effeminate and queer.
And what I noticed when I was reading this passage is that it says in the very first
verse about these important musicians who are prophesying the Word of God through song
is that they're separated.
I mean, look at verse 1.
Moreover, David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph
and of Hemanah and of Jaduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and
with cymbals, and the number of the workmen according to their service was, and then he
goes to the number.
Look, those who perform the Lord's music should be separated.
What does it mean to be separated?
The Bible says, come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch
not the unclean thing.
What did Paul say in Romans chapter 1, verse 1?
You don't have to turn there, but right at the very beginning of his epistle, he says,
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God.
So we want to be separated from the world.
We want to be separated from those who reject Christ, and we want to be separated unto the
Lord, separated unto the gospel.
And so those who perform the music of the Lord should be sanctified.
They should be separated.
They shouldn't pattern themselves after the world.
What does the Bible say?
Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that
ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
We're not to be conformed to this world.
We're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
You know what that means?
We shouldn't follow the trends of this world and be conformed to the trends of our day.
The Bible says, my son, fear God and the king, and meddle not with them that are given to
change.
Meddle not with them that are given to change.
Now, there's a time when we need to change.
There are changes that happen, changes that we go through our life.
Then there are people who are just given to change, and you know what that means?
They are just the type of person that's constantly changing, right?
It's not just saying, never change.
Yeah, there's a time to change, but then there are people who are just given to change, meaning
that they're constantly changing.
And you know what?
I think another way to describe that person who's given to change would be a trendy.
I mean, think about it.
If my doctrine is given to change, what does that mean?
I'm trendy doctrinally.
Whatever the doctrinal trend is, that's where I'm going to go with.
If I'm given to change, my clothing's constantly changing, my appearance is constantly changing,
my preaching's constantly changing, my music's constantly changing, my style's constantly
changing, I'm constantly changing jobs, I'm constantly changing churches, I'm just given
to change.
Isn't that what the Bible's saying?
Meddle not with them that are given to change.
So we shouldn't be given to change.
We shouldn't be the type of trendy person who's just carried about with every wind of
doctrine.
And you know what?
If you're carried about with every style that comes out of Paris stinking France or
Madison Avenue or Hollywood or the rock and roll or rap music industry, are you going
to let them dictate the way you dress?
Because you know, I'm not going to let them dictate the way that I dress.
And you know what?
I dress the same now as I did when I started the church 13 years ago.
I'm dressed the same tonight.
And I'm dressed the same in my personal life and I'm dressed the same in church.
Now look, I'm not saying that we should try to dress antiquated or out of style, but there
are always certain clothing that's just classic.
It never goes out of style, isn't there?
Here's another word for it.
Normal clothes.
And you know what the Bible says?
The Bible says that we should wear modest apparel.
And you know what modesty is?
Modesty is when you're not drawing attention to yourself.
Modest apparel means humble apparel.
It means I'm not trying to say everybody, hey everybody, look at me, look at what I'm
wearing.
No, I'm just dressed normal, okay?
You know, Jesus wasn't dressed weird.
That's why they had to give him a kiss to even know who he was, which one he is.
They didn't say, well, he's the guy in the skinny jeans, you know, with the long hair.
No, because he just looked like an average person.
He looked like a normal person.
And we shouldn't go around trying to draw attention to ourselves with our appearance.
You know, Jesus rebuked the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees because they love
to wear long clothing so that they could get the greetings in the marketplace, hey, everybody,
look at me, I'm a man of the cloth, instead of just looking normal, okay?
Don't be a trendy.
The trends of this world are usually ungodly.
Now, some of them are not sinful, but some of them are.
And so we don't want to be the type of person that's just going to wear whatever Britney
Spears is wearing or whatever Justin Bieber chose us to wear or whatever the Backstreet
Boys and NSYNC are wearing or whatever, okay, can somebody give me something a little more
modern?
Help me out.
I'm reverting back to my teenage years.
Who are the idols today, the role models that people want to dress like, be like, look like?
Guns and roses, give me a break.
You're trying to sabotage me, you're messing with me.
Come on, worldly ones, what are they, MC whatever, Lil whatever his name is, no, everybody's
afraid to tell me, huh, what, Post Malone, is that a thing?
Post Malone, post trip, amen, all right, we don't need Post Malone, come on, help me
out somebody, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Chris Brown, now, I don't know who any of these
people are, okay, but I guarantee you that if we looked up their personal lives, they're
not Bible-believing Christians, they're probably not in church tonight at a Bible study about
first chronicles, okay, and look, I guarantee you that the way they dress is probably stupid,
and guess what, it's gonna be outdated a couple years from now and they're gonna be wearing
something completely different, so I don't like this trendy clothing because what it
sends a message is that I'm conformed to this world.
You show me the pastor who is changing his look to fit in with what's cool in 2018, and
I will show you a pastor who is changing his preaching to fit in with what's cool in
2018.
I promise you that.
If he's gonna get a whole new wardrobe of skinny jeans and polka dot shirts and all
this goofy clothing just to look cool in 2018, he's gonna preach what the world tells him
to preach, because he's dressing the way the world tells him to dress, because he's conformed
to the world, hey, let's be transformed.
I don't need Hellywood and Madison Avenue to dictate to me how to dress.
And you know what, back when the baggy pants were the thing, I wore pants that fit normally,
and now that it's skinny jeans, I still wear pants that fit normally.
And you know what I've noticed, nobody ever goes to work in these skinny jeans at a real
like construction job, they'd split their britches.
If you tried to wear skinny jeans to a construction site, you're gonna rip your pants open, you're
gonna split your britches, you couldn't even move properly to work.
You've seen it?
Oh, they walk around with a clipboard?
Okay.
Yeah.
Wow.
I mean, look, I go to the store, I can hardly even find a normal pair of pants nowadays.
I go to the thrift store and have to find clothing from a long time ago that ended up
in a thrift store to get a normal pair of pants that fits.
Or sometimes, you know, you gotta go to a work supplies house.
I was talking to one of my pastor friends, I think it was Jason Robinson, he said he
buys his pants at a tractor supply store.
You know, just to get pants that fit, the struggle is real, my friend.
This skinny jeans, and you know what, skinny legs are not a virtue.
The Bible said in Song of Solomon, when it was describing, you know, a handsome man,
it said his legs are like pillars of marble.
Didn't say his legs are like the twigs of the apple tree, my love.
So he was, you know, his legs are like pillars of marble, okay?
Now if you have skinny legs, God bless you.
Get a little extra fabric and then we don't have to know about every little dimple of
your skinny legs and how, just how skinny they are.
That bird legged one.
And so today, we got a bunch of worldly people, and you say, well what does this have to do
with the musicians?
Because the musicians are 99% of the time the most worldly people in the church.
99%, no, not in our church, amen?
But 99% of the time, you walk into your average church, the people who are running the music
department, the music director, the choir, the singers, are usually the most liberal
church members.
They're the most worldly and trendy and they bring this stuff in and you know what?
They can literally destroy the church.
I guarantee you, I don't care if my preaching stayed the same.
If we brought in this worldly, queer sounding music and all this really trendy, effeminate
music, it would ruin the spirit of our church.
It wouldn't even be compatible with the preaching, number one.
But when you bring in this kind of just sensual closing your eyes and make love to the microphone
type of, and you know what?
They're getting it from these seductresses and seducers of this world, and then they
bring it into the house of God, it's perverted, it's perverted.
When you get up and sing, you should be singing out in praise to the Lord, and you know what
the Bible specifically says in the book of Psalms?
To sing with a loud voice.
To lift up your voice and sing praises to God.
But with the technology of microphones, you don't have to lift up your voice now.
Now you can just kind of breathe into the microphone.
And then they do this sensual bedroom whisper in your ear and it's perverted.
When women do it, it is seductive and inappropriate for church.
It's sleazy, okay?
When men do it, it's just faggoty.
Okay, it's just that simple.
And you know, we're not gonna ever have it here.
As long as I'm the pastor, it'll be over my dead body that we ever bring in this sensual,
wildly swinging and swaying and breathy kind of singing style, effeminate kind of singing
in the microphone.
No, we're gonna sing loud, we're gonna lift up the voice, we're gonna play skillfully
with a loud noise, we're gonna sing the hymns, we're gonna sing it out, and we're gonna sing
songs that are classic songs we're not gonna be carried about with every trend of music,
with the trendy music, okay?
We're gonna sing timeless music here.
Because why?
If you wanna send a message, we're not interested in what's going on in Hollywood.
We're just happy to set our own agenda here and not be carried about with what they have.
And you know, isn't it interesting how the ones who have the classic music and the serious
music and the manly music and not the effeminate music, isn't it interesting how they're the
same ones who the preaching is timeless as well and not being carried about with all
the doctrinal trends and carried about with every wind of doctrine.
The Bible commands separation.
The Bible says be different than the world.
Be a peculiar people, the Bible says.
Don't be conformed to this world.
Be transformed by the renewing of our mind.
And you know, part of the problem with this worldly music too is it's divisive.
It divides people.
Why?
Because what kind of worldly music are we gonna bring in?
Should we bring in the Christian rock?
Well what about all the people that aren't into rock?
You know, they're gonna be upset because they want us to bring in R&B and rap.
And then what if we bring in the R&B and rap?
A lot of people are gonna be horrified and tell us that rap is just short for crap.
And then, you know, what if we bring in the country western hillbilly music?
Well city slickers like me are gonna be like, what in the world?
What is this hillbilly redneck garbage?
Okay.
So the point is, remember in high school how divisive music is?
I mean I don't know about you, my whole crowd was based on my music.
All my friends was like, these are the people who listen to my music, these are my friends.
I mean that was just the way it was.
Well guess what, in church we're trying to be united here.
And we're not gonna all unite around country western.
We're not gonna all unite around Kanye West.
We're not gonna all unite around post Malone.
We're not all gonna unite around, you know, heavy metal.
Heavenly metal, amen.
We're not gonna unite, you know.
What we need is just to sing songs that aren't based on pleasing the world or being trendy,
but just songs that teach great doctrine and that lift up our hearts as we sing them and
encourage us and motivate us and songs where we can just sing out to the Lord.
And I think one of the most important things about being a musician is that you never seek
to glorify yourself.
This is the pitfall of musicians is they can be filled with pride because they have this
amazing skill.
It's easy to be proud.
Look at me everybody, let me just perform and show you how great I am.
This is why our church does not even have a choir.
We don't even have special music.
We don't even have quartets and duets and solos.
It's not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, it's just that we're not
gonna do it, why?
Because I've seen it my whole life, Star Search Baptist Church, American Idol Baptist Church.
People get up and they sing a solo and it's their moment in the sun to shine and they're
not glorifying the Lord folks, they're glorifying themselves.
One of the words that just always comes to my mind when I hear a lot of performances
in church is just self glorifying.
It's not about praising God or prophesying through the music, but rather just about showing
off, showing off.
Now I believe that we should sing the best that we can and we need to sing loud and you
know our church could improve in this area.
Our church is not the best church on singing.
Now our church sings pretty good but we are not the best church on singing.
I visit other churches that out sing us all the time and I'm not trying to be down on
us or anything or insult anybody.
Part of that is just because we have so many people in our church who didn't grow up in
church and I think that's a great thing because that means we're reaching new people that
haven't grown up in church so they're still learning the songs but you know I would love
to see our church improve in this area.
What do I mean by that?
I mean you pick up the song book and sing it out as loud as you can.
Belt it out.
Let's make this place rumble with singing the hymns here and let's sing it out with
the top of our lungs, amen?
It's powerful when God's people really sing and give it all their...
Don't be one of these that's just kind of like, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let
the earth hear.
You know it ought to be, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice.
I mean let it rip, sing it out.
And you know what, when you actually sing it out, then you're not getting all breathy
and sensual.
So it fixes that right away.
So we see in this chapter that they're separated, they're prophesying, there's a lot of doctrine
to be learned from the music.
It's important, God spends entire chapters in the Bible recognizing the people who excel
at this.
I think it's great if the piano player is highly skilled, if the guitar player is highly
skilled, those who play on brass, trumpet, saxophone, woodwind, if they're highly skilled
the Bible praises that.
We should do everything to the best of our ability, sing out, play with all our might,
be cunning, be skilled, learn how to do a good job.
Why?
Because it glorifies God.
It glorifies God.
And it helps us to be filled with the Spirit, the Bible says.
Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
The Bible says in verse 2 at the end, which prophesied according to the order of the king.
We see that there's a structure here.
I mean this is important, I mean David is giving clear directives here, Asaph is put
in charge, He-Man is another leader here in the area of music.
The Bible says in verse number 5, all these were the sons of He-Man, the king's seer,
in the words of God, to lift up the horn.
And God gave to He-Man fourteen sons and three daughters.
All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the Lord with cymbals,
salt trees, and harps for the service of the house of God according to the king's order
to Asaph, Jeduthun, and He-Man.
So we see that it's a commandment.
These guys are carrying out the commandment, they're organized, they're broken into groups.
Then the Bible teaches here that there are some people who taught music and other people
that were being instructed in music.
Jump down to verse 7.
So the number of them with their brethren that were instructed in the songs of the Lord,
even all that were cunning, cunning means they're skillful, they're really good at playing
those instruments, was two hundred four score and eight, and they cast lots, ward against
ward, as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar.
The scholar here is not someone who's studying languages or mathematics, the scholar here
is one who studies music.
The music scholar and the music teacher, those who play instruments, those who sing, men,
women, small, great, this is a big production, folks.
Now obviously as we read the New Testament, preaching and evangelizing is a bigger emphasis
than music.
There's not as much talk, but the Bible does in the New Testament reiterate the teachings
of the Old Testament on music and point us to the Old Testament teachings on music.
And so we need to take this seriously.
So what shall you take away from this sermon tonight?
What's the moral of the story here?
Here's what it is, is that God cares about music, music matters to him, it's not something
that's just meaningless, it's the longest book in the Bible, the book of Psalms, multiple
other chapters, whole lists of people that are involved in it, the New Testament talks
about it, the Old Testament talks about it, and he says, look, he wants people to be separated,
he wants them to prophesy through music, to glorify him, to teach the word of God through
music, he wants them to play skillfully with a loud noise, he wants us to lift up our voice
and sing.
You say, I'm not a musical person, you know, just make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
Come to church, get the songbook, and sing along to the best of your ability.
And you would do well throughout the week to sing unto the Lord.
You say, I don't have a hymnal, well, you do now.
Take the hymnal home with you.
These hymnals just look both ways and just take it and go.
No, I'm just joking.
We've had a policy at our church for the last 13 years that anybody who wants to can
take one of the hymnals home with them.
And just take it, it's yours.
People visit from out of town, hey, can I take a hymnal?
Sure, take it.
We are constantly ordering new hymnals and buying new hymnals to replace the ones that
people take home because we want you to have a hymnal in your home so that you can actually
sing these songs at home.
And you know, if you sing the songs at home and get all practiced up, then when you come
to church, you can really belt it out.
You can really sing it out because you've been practicing at home.
It's a great way to participate in the service and it's really life-changing to sing the
hymns on a regular basis.
We've got this wonderful book with over 400 great songs.
I think 99% of them are excellent.
I don't even think they're just okay songs.
I mean, I think the hymnals fill with great songs.
You say, well, you grew up with them.
No, because I'm constantly learning new songs out of the hymnal.
Every month I learn new songs and I think the new ones are great.
I mean, I'm constantly learning songs that I love.
And so we need to make this a part of our lives, singing hymns, singing praises to God.
And if you play a musical instrument, you know what?
Use that for the Lord, not for glorification of self or worldliness or things like that.
You know, use that for the Lord.
Bring it to church.
Play along with our songs.
You know, learn the hymns and use it.
Maybe you played an instrument in band and you want to get back into it, you know, bring
it down and participate and play or just sing it out.
But music matters.
And my pastor back in Sacramento, he always said, as goes the music, so goes the church.
And you know, if we get into this liberal hill song kind of CCM, purple lighting, barstool,
swaying and skinny jeans, there's no way we're going to be doctrinally sound.
It just doesn't happen.
It never happens.
Because if you're a trendy in one area, you're probably just a trendy all the way around.
I'm not a trendy.
We as Christians ought not to be trendies.
Don't be given to change.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Thank you for the gift of music and thank you for the people that help us with music
and that play piano or trumpet or guitars or whatever the instrument, saxophone, Lord.
And please just let your people sing it out, Lord.
And Lord, I pray that our lives would be enriched by singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
and making melody in our hearts unto you and help us to realize that music is prophecy.
It is preaching.
And help us to sing songs that solidify good doctrine, not songs that teach us bad doctrine
or bad lifestyles.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.