But let's look at there in Psalm 67 in verse number 3, Psalm 67 verse number 3, it says
Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
The title for the sermon this evening is let all the people praise thee, let all the people
praise thee.
You know it's your job to praise God.
If you're saved, if you've been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, you believe in him,
you have to praise God.
You know God expects that from you.
You know you should want to do it.
He's forgiven you from all your sins, he saved your soul, he sacrificed his son for you.
You know Jesus Christ took our curse, he took our sin, and he gave us his righteousness.
You know when we die we're going to open our eyes and we're going to be in heaven.
We're going to walk those streets of gold, we're going to live in those mansions that
Christ has prepared.
You know he's made us part of his royal family, we're kings and priests, we're going to come
back here in the millennial reign of Christ and we're going to see the earth under the
influence of almighty God with that rod of iron and then we get the new heavens and the
new earth and the excitement of eternity.
We have a lot to praise God for.
Just the fact that he's given us life, that he's given us another day to live for him,
he deserves our praise.
Now look at verse number four, it says, oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
How I wish that was true today, how I wish Australia, okay, not just blessed up Baptist
church or other good churches, but how I wish our nation was a Christian nation where
they loved the Lord God and they would just sing praise unto him.
But notice it says, oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
You know when we praise God we ought to do it by song and we ought to be glad about it.
You know I hope when you consider church and your attendance to church and when it comes
to time to sing praises to God, I hope you're glad to sing.
And I'm saying that because I've grown up in church, I've been a child where I've gone
to a watered-down Baptist church, but they still sang some great hymns, and honestly
I would say maybe 50% of the time my heart wasn't in it.
I wasn't happy.
In fact, eventually I found myself in a Christian high school and they played all the Hillsong,
the vineyard, I don't know, vineyard's still around, you know all the modern Christian
contemporary music with a beat that appeals to the flesh, and then I'd go to my local
church and sing the old hymns and my heart just wasn't in it, right?
My flesh preferred the godless Hillsong style music and my heart was in it.
You know as many times we can sing praise to God, hey maybe even tonight, maybe even
tonight as we sung the hymns together, maybe your heart was not in it, okay?
But remind yourself why we do this, we don't just, it's not like a show, we don't just
turn up to church and just let's just sing because everyone else is singing and this
is just part of the service to get to the sermon, we're singing to Almighty God.
Remember that, okay?
You're not singing to me, you're not trying to impress me, we're not trying to impress
one another, you know we're singing to an Almighty God that deserves praise.
But notice what it says in verse number 4 at the end of it, it says, for thou shalt
judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth, Selah.
Let the people praise thee, O God, let all the people praise thee.
And so actually when we look at this psalm we realise this is not about today, this is
not about present time because it says here that God will judge, govern upon the nations
of the earth, when is that going to take place?
Of course the millennial reign of Christ.
Now what's wonderful about this future is not only will Christ rule and reign on this
earth but all the nations, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Iran, England, United States,
we're all going to be praising the Lord Jesus Christ together.
This is going to be a wonderful time, and so you can see that this is really about a
prophecy of the future.
But you know what, we can experience that a little bit, you know when we're back in
church and we're amongst believers and the saints, we get the opportunity to praise God
today.
Now when we look at the word, we're looking at a psalm here, the psalms in your Bible
is the Bible songbook.
Psalms basically means a sacred song.
The psalms is the songbook of the Bible.
There's another songbook of the Bible, of course that's the Song of Solomon, it's quite
clear by the name of it, right?
It's also known as the Song of Songs, and I believe that means it's the best song that
Solomon ever put together for music, right?
And so we have the Song of Solomon as well which is a great book to sing through, but
these are songbooks.
You know God has given us these examples, the psalms, the Song of Solomon, as good examples
of the kinds of songs that we ought to enjoy.
You know when you compare the songs that we sing in our church, or the type of songs that
we sing in the psalms, versus the kind of music that's played by the radio stations,
you know played, you know that you can watch on YouTube, all the disgusting, wicked video,
you know music videos that you see, it is so different isn't it?
The music of the world is so different to the kind of music that God wants us to sing.
But I just wanted to remind you once again that you know God wants us singing praises
unto him.
Can you please keep your finger in psalms, actually go to Psalm 19, go to Psalm 19 for
me, and then go to Ephesians chapter 5.
Go to Psalm 19, and then go to Ephesians chapter 5.
Psalm 19, and then Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians chapter 5 verse number 19, I want you to look
at this together, Ephesians 5, 19.
Now I believe this really reinforces why the praising, the singing is so important in our
church.
Ephesians 5, 19 says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
You know when we sing, we're actually speaking one to another.
And you know it says here, making melody in your heart to the Lord.
This is not optional.
God is not saying only sing if you have a good voice.
It's not saying only sing if you know the song that you're singing.
You know God has created you with your voice, with your heart to praise him.
You can, you sound totally different to anybody else in the church.
You might say, but Pastor Kevin, I don't care, I can't carry a tune.
I'm not musically talented, I've never sung before.
You know my voice, it's like you know nails on a chalkboard.
Well you know what, it's the voice that God has given you, and it's the voice that God
wants you to use to sing unto him.
But notice once again that we're commanded to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because many times, and you know this can
happen in my church, this happens in many churches.
People come late to church, right, instead of coming at the time that church starts,
they come late, you know they come basically just in time for the sermon.
It's almost like the singing part is just not that important to them, okay.
And look I truly believe even if people are coming late to church, they do love the Lord.
They want to be in God's house, they want to learn from his word, but they haven't fully
understood how important the singing service is, okay.
Maybe people feel it's embarrassing, or they feel like the song service is that buffer,
right.
It's that little buffer period.
As long as I arrive before the preaching, I haven't really been late for church.
But that is the opportunity, you know that first, what do we use, maybe 15 minutes.
The first 15 minutes of church is a time that we collectively as a body, you know I
can't wait until we can get back together as a church, collectively as a body of God,
of Christ, singing praises together, this one body, you know lifting up our voices and
just wanting to worship our Lord God.
So it's good for us.
Singing actually helps the soul.
You know there are many doctrines that I learnt as a child simply by singing the old hymns.
As I said, I received a lot of watered down preaching, but I feel like I learnt a lot
of doctrine just singing the hymns, because a lot of those old hymns are very doctrinal
heavy, okay.
When you look at the modern music today, the modern Christian contemporary music, it sounds
like a love song.
It sounds like a boy singing to his girlfriend, okay, and then that's a Christian song.
You're actually singing about Jesus, you're singing about God, and it is so repetitive,
it is so shallow, it is just vain repetition, the same words, you know I've been to these
charismatic churches, they sing the same line over and over and over and over again.
It's like you've been put into a trance, you've been hypnotized almost, now one of these people
fall down eventually, okay, they've been hypnotized and in this trance, that's not the kind of
music that God has for us.
If you want to know the kinds of, why do we sing hymns?
Is it just because we just want to be old fashioned?
You know, people might say, well if you just got some more modern music, some of this stuff
that comes out of Hillsong, maybe you'll grow your church.
The reason we sing the hymns is because they're full of doctrine and they remind us of the
psalms.
You look at the psalms, they're full of doctrine, great teaching, and you know the hymns follows
up with the same pattern, deep doctrinal teaching, okay, coming from our songs, okay.
So we shouldn't be singing songs like a boyfriend sings to his girlfriend, but we should be
singing songs that are full of doctrine.
Now did I get to turn to Psalm 19, right, yeah, Psalm 19, look at Psalm 19 please in
verse number 14.
Psalm 19 and verse number 14, it says, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of
my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer.
Notice what the psalmist says, I want my words, I want my heart to be acceptable in your sight,
God, all right.
So notice that our praise, our worship can either be accepted by God or not accepted,
okay.
So it's not just singing songs, as I said many times I've been in the same boat, you
know, we open up our home book, we're singing these songs, you know, we sort of overlook
the word, we're just getting through it, your heart's not in it, you know, if your heart's
not in it, it's not going to be received by God, it's not acceptable to God.
I don't care if you've opened your mouth, I don't care if you've got the best voice
in the church, if it's not coming from your heart, it's not acceptable.
See what the psalmist said once again, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of
my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer.
And so what I'm saying to you brethren is make sure that you're worshiping God from
your heart, that you truly love the Lord, you know, you're not just going through the
motions, you want to sing praises because your heart loves the Lord God, you love Him
for what, you know, all the great things that He has done for you.
You know, just another passage, Luke 6 44 says, For every tree is known by his own fruits,
for of thorns men do gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather thy grapes.
It says, A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bring forth that which is good,
and an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bring forth that which is evil.
For of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, okay, for the abundance of the heart,
his mouth speaketh.
You know, we need to understand that our words that come out of our mouth is supposed to
be a reflection of what is in our heart.
And you know, Jesus Christ spoke about those that would, you know, praise Him with their
lips, but their hearts will be far from Him.
And I would say that probably happens every time we have church.
I'm sure there are people within our church, I don't like to think about it, but I'm sure
there are people in our church that are singing praises to God, but their hearts just not
in it.
Again, it's just getting through this part of the service, so we can get to the preaching,
so we can wrap up church, and then we can get on with our lives, okay.
But singing is such an important aspect.
Actually I've got the verse here, I've got the reference.
In Matthew 15, 7, it says, Ye hypocrites, where did Isaiah prophesy of Usain?
This people draw nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Now this is not about singing, but you can still apply the principle here, right.
You know, we can worship God in vain.
We can worship Him with our mouth, and with our lips, and it sounds like we're praising
God, we're great Christians, but our hearts can be far from Him.
God says, in vain they do worship me.
What that means is, vain means empty.
It means, yeah, there was some worship, but it's empty.
It means nothing to God.
It counts for nothing.
This is often why when we start our service, you know, I often pray to God, Lord, will
you receive our praise?
Will you receive our worship?
You know, we want to praise you, Lord.
You know, this isn't just about man, you know, being a man-centric church.
We want to make sure that every time we have service, not only do we benefit, we want God's
heart to be filled with praise, you know.
We want Him to have, you know, our voices to be sweet unto Him, right.
He's a sweet-smelling saver that rises up to the Lord because He deserves our praise.
Can you please go to Colossians chapter 3?
Go to Colossians chapter 3, please.
Colossians chapter 3.
And the other thing that I want to bring up now is that, you may not realize this, but
singing is a teaching ministry.
You know, we know that preaching the Bible is a teaching ministry.
Okay, obviously.
Hey, soul winning is a teaching ministry.
You're going and you're teaching people the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A lot of people don't realize, though, that singing is a teaching ministry, okay.
So Colossians 3, 16.
Colossians 3, 16.
It says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to
the Lord.
Remember again?
Singing from the hearts.
It's got to be coming out of your heart.
But notice it says, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs.
I already told you that as a child going to my watered down Baptist union church, I didn't
get much teaching from the pulpit.
A lot of the teaching came from singing the hymns, okay.
That's what it should be like.
The songs we sing ought to be things that we learn from, okay.
Doctrines that are rich and are teachable to each other.
And so you must understand that when we sing praises in church, we're actually all teaching
one another great doctrines.
This is another reason why it's so important that we're careful about the kind of hymns
we sing.
You know, we sing from this hymn book.
It's called the Soul Stirring Songs and Hymns.
You know, there's a section of hymns here.
But you know what?
We don't sing every hymn because there are some hymns here that are doctrinally incorrect,
okay.
We don't want to sing doctrinally incorrect hymns because then we're teaching false things.
It's a teaching ministry, okay.
We also have to be careful with the kind of songs that we sing.
We're careful with the kind of preaching, the doctrines that get taught behind the pulpit.
We have to be equally careful with the kind of songs that we sing and we need to make
sure that they are doctrinally correct.
Now, you know, the question then gets brought up.
Well, if singing is a teaching ministry and we know that women should not be teaching
in the church, then should women be singing?
Okay.
I mean, that kind of gets brought up, okay.
So let me just give you, let me just, if you can turn to Exodus, turn to Exodus 15, turn
to Exodus 15.
I think it's a legitimate question.
I think it's a stupid question.
You know, we want to run church properly.
We want to make sure that women are not teaching because it's very clear in First Corinthians
14, 34, it says, let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto
them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience as sayeth also the law, okay.
So women are not allowed to be in a teaching ministry, you know, especially if a woman
is teaching men.
So if women are singing together with the men, are they teaching men?
You know.
Again, I think it's a good question.
I don't think it's stupid, okay.
But there is an answer to this and you'll turn to Exodus 15.
Turn to Exodus 15 verse 20, Exodus 15 verse 20 and then I'll explain to you how we can
apply what we're about to read today, okay, in the local church.
But Exodus 15 verse 20, this is shortly after the children of Israel exited Egypt, they
passed through the Red Sea and the Lord destroyed the Egyptian army under the sea, right.
So it says in Exodus 15, 20, and Miriam, so Miriam is the sister of Moses, the prophetess,
the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand and all the women went out after her
with timbrels and with dancers and Miriam answered them, sing ye to the Lord for he
have triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider have you thrown into the sea.
So you can see Miriam gets together with all the other ladies and they start to sing and
sing praise unto the Lord and sing about how the Lord has delivered them from the hands
of the Egyptians.
You know, this is great, this is awesome, you know.
And so people think well then women should be allowed to teach in church.
Surely this should be, you know, this is a good example of what that should look like.
But I want to bring your attention to, in the same chapter, look at verse number 1,
Exodus 15 verse number 1.
Now again, what is Miriam singing?
What's the Miriam and the women singing?
I'll read it again.
They're singing, sing ye to the Lord for he have triumphed gloriously, the horse and
his rider have you thrown into the sea.
But I want you to notice that this is not Miriam's song.
If you look at Exodus 15 verse 1, it says, then sang Moses and the children of Israel
this song unto the Lord and spake saying, I will sing unto the Lord for you have triumphed
gloriously, the horse and his rider have you thrown into the sea.
So what song is Moses singing?
The exact same song that later on Miriam is singing.
Okay, so what does that mean?
Well, once again, look at Exodus 15 verse number 21, Exodus 15 verse number 21.
It says, and Miriam answered them, okay.
So we have Moses, he starts a song, he starts the teaching ministry in song, and then Miriam,
his sister answers, responds, she's singing the same song that Moses is singing, okay.
So I want to show you that who's the actual song leader?
It's a man.
It's Moses, okay.
He's the one doing the teaching.
This is why if we want to take this principle, we know that women should not be teaching,
but then we see an example like this where women are singing, we don't want to stop women
from singing, praise God.
But what we learn, the principle here is that basically, because it is a teaching ministry,
the song leader should be a man.
This is why when I have other men that are leading in songs and praises, I choose to
have a man here, not a woman, okay.
Because we're trying to pattern ourselves after the Bible, we want to acknowledge that
singing is a teaching ministry, we want to make sure that it's a man that's leading that.
You say, what about if a couple of ladies want to get together and sing a song special
to the church, would you allow that?
I would allow that as long as a man is directing them, okay.
I would allow that as long as a man is directing that.
So for example, I've seen one scenario where in one of my old churches, we had like a lady's
choir together, just the ladies, but there was a man who was conducting the singing,
right.
One of those musical conductors, right.
And so you can still see in that example, you still have a man who is leading that singing,
that teaching ministry in song even though there were ladies up here.
So I don't think we're ever going to get to a point where I'm going to have a whole bunch
of ladies come up to me and say, hey, we really want to do a special.
Usually when I say things like that, people get embarrassed and they don't want to do
it.
So I don't know when that might even happen in our church, but I'm just trying to show
you that I'm not against women's singing as long as there are other men that are leading
that together and that's how I believe with what we see in the Bible that that's the proper
way to conduct, for the ladies to be able to sing as well within the church.
Now can you also now go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and verse number 26.
First Corinthians chapter 14, verse number 26.
First Corinthians 14 number 26.
I know some people might be against a special, like a song special.
I'm not against that.
And the reason I'm not against that is because 1 Corinthians 14, 26 says, how is it then
brethren when you come together, every one of you have a psalm, have a doctrine, have
a tongue, have a revelation, have an interpretation.
Let all things be done unto edifying.
So notice that Paul is writing to this church and this church is not organized.
Paul is rebuking this church.
It's not organized.
And he's saying, look, some of you have a psalm, which is a song.
Some of you want to teach doctrine.
Some of you are able to speak in other languages.
Some of you have a revelation from the Lord.
Some of you can interpret that revelation or that tongue, but he says, let all things
be done unto edifying.
He's not saying that any of these things are wrong.
He just says, make sure that it's done properly in its proper place.
So I'm not against a song special, but what I will not allow in my church is for people
just randomly, hey, I've got a song to sing, but can I sing right now?
Hey, God just revealed some great truth to me right now in the Bible.
Can I just get up and teach it right now?
No, things should be done decently and in order.
But again, I'm not against any kind of song specials.
Now, when we looked at a little bit earlier in the, let me just read it again, once again,
Colossians 3 16, which said, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom,
teaching and admonishing.
So I said it's a teaching ministry, but it's also admonishing one another in Psalms.
What does it mean to admonish?
Does anyone know?
You guys know out there?
To admonish is to reprimand or correct, basically to chastise, to correct, okay?
And so, you know, the other important things about the kind of songs that we sing, they
ought to make us, it ought to admonish us.
It ought to make us think, boy, you know, I've just been chastised by song.
I've just been corrected by song.
And so how does that look like?
Well, for example, you know, I'm not sure if you're all aware of the song that, All
to Jesus I Surrender, I think it's called, okay?
Like I once got a phone call from a person and said, look, there are some songs in church
that I don't want to sing.
And I said, well, why don't you want to sing that song?
And they said, well, because I'm singing songs and I don't actually do what the song
says.
Like I'm singing to God, you know, I surrender all God, but I haven't really surrendered
all.
So am I being a bit of a hypocrite, you know, from singing this song?
Well, no, you know what that song is doing?
It's admonishing you, okay?
So let me just go through the words, you know, All to Jesus I Surrender, All to Him I freely
give, I will ever love and trust Him in His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all, All to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.
You know what?
I don't believe there's anyone in my church that has surrendered everything for Jesus
Christ.
Does that mean we're all hypocrites for singing this?
No.
Should we live for the Lord every moment of our life?
Give every day, every hour and every minute to the Lord?
We should be doing that, shouldn't we, brethren?
And so these songs admonish us.
It's to challenge us.
Say, boy, you know what, I've not been living for you, Lord, this week.
And I sung, I surrender all and I just realized I don't even need the preaching.
The song was enough to convict me today.
And I realized there's something that I've come short in this week and I need to serve
my Lord God.
So just because some songs are very high standards, you know, you shouldn't turn around and say,
well, I can't sing that.
I feel like a hypocrite.
I'm glad you feel that way.
Because that's what it's, it's to admonish you, it's to correct you.
It's a teaching ministry, okay?
Once again, the songs that come from Hillsong, et cetera, they don't admonish you.
It's just a love letter.
You don't feel guilty.
You don't feel like, man, I've come short of what I've just sung there.
It's a good thing when that happens because then you know the Spirit of God has taught
you something through song.
That's the kind of music that we should be singing.
If you've got your hymnals, can you turn to hymn number 240?
Hymn number 240, 240.
And I want to give you an example of a hymn that we don't sing in our church.
Now this hymn is sung by many Baptist churches, many independent Baptist churches.
I don't mind the song, actually.
I will say, though, when I did sing this song in the past, I did feel a little bit weird
singing it.
I will admit that, okay?
I couldn't really understand why, but I knew there was something just not quite right about
this hymn.
So when we look at hymn number 240, let's just look at the first stanza.
I have found a friend in Jesus.
He's everything to me.
I like that so far.
He is the fairest of 10,000 to my soul.
I don't have a problem with that.
The lily of the valley.
I remember when I used to sing this, I think, man, that kind of sounds a little bit effeminate,
right?
I mean, I don't really want to think of God and Jesus Christ as effeminate here.
I don't want to really think about Jesus as a lily, you know, a lily in the valley.
And I just thought, man, there must be something wrong with me.
Like why can't I just sing this and not feel guilty?
Like there was something wrong.
I don't mind the tune.
If you listen to the tune, it's quite nice, okay?
The lily of the valley, in hymn alone I see, all I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.
So yeah, of course, Christ is the one that makes us fully whole.
The hymn refers to Jesus as the lily of the valley.
You say, well, what's the significance there?
Now go to your Bible and turn to the Song of Solomon, please.
Turn to the Song of Solomon, Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse number 1.
And don't forget the Song of Solomon is a songbook as well, okay?
So it's called the Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse number 1.
Let me just show you where the lily of the valley reference comes from in the Bible,
okay?
Song of Solomon chapter 2 and verse number 1.
Now if you're not familiar with the Song of Solomon, it's basically a love book between
husband and wife.
It's about marriage.
And you'll find that often the husband is speaking, sometimes the wife is speaking back
to the husband, and it kind of keeps interchangeable, right?
It's interchangeable, right?
I believe the Song of Solomon is a great book for marriage, you know, a great book to strengthen
your marriage, a great book to read, to get prepared for marriage, et cetera, because
that's the kind of book it is, right?
Look at verse number 1.
It says, I am the rose of Sharon.
Now you need to decide as you read this, who do you think is speaking?
Could it be the wife or the husband?
To say, I am the rose of Sharon, you would immediately think, well, that must be a feminine
quality.
That must be a woman.
I can't think of a man referring to himself as a rose, okay?
It's going to be a feminine quality.
But look at this.
I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.
And actually it is the wife that's speaking here, okay?
So who's the lily of the valley?
Is it a man?
Is it the husband?
Or is it a woman?
Is it the wife?
It's the wife, okay?
Because then it says in verse number 2, now the husband responds to what his wife just
said.
He says, as the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
Daughters, that's a feminine thing, right?
So the lily amongst thorns, so is my love, his love is his wife, my love among the daughters.
You know what the husband is saying?
He says, I love my wife so much amongst all the other, like compared to all the other
women that are on this earth, I love my wife so much that my wife is like a lily amongst
thorns.
He says all the other women are thorns, right?
It's dangerous.
I'm not going to go near those thorns because I have my lily.
That's good teaching.
You know, when you're married, your eyes ought to be on your wife and all the other women,
they're thorns.
Okay?
That's good teaching.
Amen.
So again, the husband refers to his wife as the lily.
Look at verse number three.
As the apple tree.
Now when you think about that, what could be the apple tree?
When you compare the rose and the lily to the feminine, what would be the apple tree?
The apple tree would be the man, would be the husband, right?
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
Masculine.
Okay?
Now the wife is responding back to the husband.
Okay?
She refers to her husband as an apple tree.
She goes, I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruits were sweet to
my taste.
So she's saying that my husband's like this tree, like there's all these trees in the
wood but my husband is the apple tree.
He's productive.
I can eat from that tree.
I can put myself under the shadow of that tree, right?
So it's kind of saying the husband is strong, a strong tree, it's protective, it'll keep
us safe, it'll provide for her, right, giving the apples to her, you know, that's of course
the correct role for a man to provide for his wife and for his family.
And then it says, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
So by looking at this, it's very clear that the lily of the valley is a feminine quality.
It's the wife.
Okay?
Drop down to verse number 16.
It says here, my beloved is mine and I am his.
So who's speaking?
The wife, right?
It says my beloved, that's my husband, is mine and I am his.
He, that's the husband, he feedeth among the lilies.
So what's the lilies?
Referring to herself, okay?
So once again, the lily of the valley is the wife, it's feminine.
So when we turn to hymn number 240, the lily of the valley, and we start calling Jesus
a woman, the feminine qualities, we're not going to sing that.
It's doctrinally incorrect.
I don't care how many churches and how many pastors think this is a fine hymn to sing,
it is not fine.
I don't want to call God by that name.
This should be called the apple tree of the valley, not the lily of the valley, right?
If we're going to take the masculine aspects, right?
We know that Christ is compared to his love for the church as a husband ought to love
his wife.
So if you wanted to use that illustration, yeah, it ought to be the apple tree, right?
If you want to come up with a new hymn called the apple tree, we can replace hymn number
240 and sing songs that are doctrinally sound, okay?
So notice that we have to be careful about the kinds of songs that we sing.
Please turn to hymn number 243, it's not too far from there.
Hymn number 243, and here we have a very famous, very loved hymn actually, Victory in Jesus.
You know, for the large part, again, I love this hymn, for the large part, there's a lot
of great stuff.
I love the tune, it's actually fun to sing, okay?
Let's sing it together.
I heard an old, old story, how a saviour came from glory, how he gave his life on Calvary
to save a wretch like me.
Awesome.
I heard about his groaning, of his precious blood's atoning.
And I believed on Jesus Christ and won the victory.
Because salvation is by grace through faith, not with works, salvation is not by repenting
of my sins.
What is this psalm saying?
What is this song saying?
That I repented of my sins and won the victory?
Salvation has never been by repenting of your sins.
That term doesn't even exist in your Bible.
This song, as much as I love it, I know it, I can sing it, I can sing it off my heart,
brethren, right?
I don't need the words.
But it's doctrinally incorrect.
It's teaching a false gospel, right?
And we can't sing that.
So this is a song, 243, Victory in Jesus, that we don't sing.
I don't care how famous it is.
We need to be careful, right?
Let all the people praise him, we want our praise, we want our worship, we want our songs
to be acceptable unto God.
If we sing hymn 243, that we repent of our sins to be saved, you know what, God's going
to say, that's a false gospel.
I don't accept that.
We just spend the next two, three, four minutes singing this song and it's just a vanity.
It's vain worship of God.
It's not going to be accepted by the Lord God.
Acts 16, 31, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved.
John 3, 16, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Salvation, to win the victory, brethren, is by placing your belief, your trust, your faith
on the finished work of Jesus Christ, not by cleaning up your life and repenting of
your sins.
That's not even in your Bible.
Okay?
It's not biblical doctrine.
Okay?
It's false religion.
It's a false gospel.
Can you please take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 98, Psalm 98 and verse number four,
Psalm 98 and verse number four.
So anyway, I'm glad I've been able to go for that because I have given out some hymnals
to people that are singing along with the live service.
I don't want you to think that everything here is perfect.
It's not the Bible.
It's still written by man.
And to be honest with you, I don't even know if all these people were saved.
I'm sure many of these people were not even saved when they said, hey, still, there's
much truth.
There's good doctrine here.
We don't have to, you know, throw out the baby in the bath water.
We just have to identify the songs that are doctrinally wrong and not sing them.
Okay?
Psalm 98 and verse number four, please, Psalm 98 and verse number four.
The next point that I have for you today, brethren, is you need to sing loudly.
Sing loudly, right?
Growing up, you know, my mother used to sing in the choir.
I think my dad used to sing as well.
My brother growing up in church also would sing in church.
My family were good singers.
Generally speaking, they're good for that kind of thing.
I've never really been into it.
I had to develop singing later in my life, you know, in my 20s kind of thing.
But one thing I remember as I was sort of learning how to sing is that I didn't have
a very loud voice to sing.
And I couldn't hit certain ranges.
Like there was sometimes the song would get too high and I couldn't reach those high notes.
Sometimes the song would go too low and I couldn't reach those low notes.
And the reason is I just didn't have the practice, okay?
But Psalm 98 verse number four says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth.
Make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise.
So when we sing to the Lord, brethren, how should we sing?
What's a good song here?
There was a time on earth when in the book of heaven an old account was standing for
sins yet unforgiven.
Is that how we should sing?
Or should we do it a little bit better, right?
There was a time on earth when in the book of heaven an old account was standing for
sins yet unforgiven.
You know, God wants us to sing loud.
This voice can get pretty loud.
You know what?
People come from football games and people get pretty loud for their football team.
You know what?
We should get pretty loud for our Lord who loves us and who died for us.
You know what?
He wants us to use our voice loudly, to sing praise unto Him.
Once again, this comes with practice, this comes with experience.
One thing I also learnt is, and I looked this up as well, it's actually factually correct.
If you sing louder, the louder you sing, the higher the notes you can reach, the lower
the notes you can reach.
In other words, your range is expanded.
You'll be able to sing better if you actually sing loud.
But if you kind of mutter under your breath and try to keep your voice low, hope nobody
hears me, you're not going to even be very effective in your singing, okay?
Let the singing be a reflection of the praise that's in your heart, okay?
Think about it like that.
I want the way I praise God to be a reflection of how much I love Him in my heart.
Not to look good in front of man.
Not that Pastor Kevin can be happy that his church is singing loud, though it makes me
very happy when that happens.
But you know what?
We do it to just give God the praise.
That's the whole point.
Let all the people praise Him.
The title for the sermon tonight.
Go to Psalm 51, verse 14.
Psalm 51, verse number 14.
Psalm 51, 14.
Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation.
And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
Go to Psalm 59, 16.
Psalm 59, 16.
But I will sing of thy power, yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning.
I don't know how long, you know what, I don't do this for everyone.
I've just been admonished.
You know what I should do when I wake up?
I don't know if my wife would like this a lot.
I don't wake up and praise God with song, just sing aloud and wake everybody up in the
house.
Maybe we need to do that.
Okay?
For thou has been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.
Go to Psalm 81.
Psalm 81, verse 1.
Psalm 81, and verse number 1.
Psalm 81, verse number 1.
It says sing aloud unto God our strength.
Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob.
And lastly, I'll just read to you Psalm 149, Psalm 149, verse 5.
Psalm 149, verse 5.
Let the saints be joyful in glory.
Let them sing aloud upon their beds.
You know what?
You wake up in the morning.
I don't know if you can do this, brother Tim.
I know you've got a, you know, a friend that you live with, but you know.
I think God wants us to actually get on our beds, okay, because then we're a little bit
higher.
Our voices are just a little bit closer to the Lord, and he just wants to sing aloud
and sing praises to him upon our bed.
We need to get into this habit, you know.
I think sometimes as Baptists, as fundamentalists, we've seen the Charismatics, we've seen the
Pentecostal churches, we've seen the Hills songs, they get pretty loud.
Maybe not so much the singing, but the instruments.
The drums get pretty loud, they turn the amplifier up on the guitar, you know, it's
pretty loud, and we're like, well, you know, we know that's an issue.
We know the songs are vain repetitions.
We know that the doctrines are wrong in those churches, and we don't want to identify with
those kinds of songs, churches.
So we're kind of being, okay, let's just stand still, arms, you know, next to each other,
and let's just be quiet, put our heads down, and not be very loud.
That shouldn't be the Baptist way.
You know, we should still.
You know, with the little church that we are, you know what, we still have big hearts.
We love doctrine.
We love our Lord.
We should be doing the best we can, singing loud praises unto the Lord.
Get on your bed.
Get on your bed this week and sing a song.
Can you do it?
That's my challenge to you this week.
Get on your bed one day.
Maybe, Tim, you've got to wait for your friends to go to work.
Get on your bed and sing some loud praises unto the Lord.
Once again, you might say, well, I'm not a good singer.
Yeah, neither was I.
I still don't think I'm a good singer, right?
But practice makes anything.
Practice makes perfect, all right?
You want to get better at something, the only way you can get better at it is to sing, you
know, to practice that same thing.
All right, brethren, that's really all that I have for you today.
You know, singing is a teaching ministry.
God wants us to sing loud.
He deserves our praise.
Let all the people praise him.
Hey, get used to it.
Get used to it.
We're going to come back in the millennium, and all the nations are going to be singing
praise unto God.
The more we practice right now, the better song leaders we're going to be in the millennial
reign of Christ.
Okay, let's pray.