REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY
SERMON 31 OCTOBER 2004 MORNING SERVICE
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Beloved
grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ, through the mighty working of God the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Psalm of Praise: 68:13
Confession of faith: Nicea
Law
Psalm: 86:2
Prayer
Psalm: 71:9+14
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 14
Text: 1 Corinthians 14:15
“So
what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray
with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my
mind."
There are two faculties of each person that must be fully functional
when we worship the Lord: they are our heart and our mind.
- Our emotions should be in full function but they must be founded
in
that which we know.
- My mind must speak as loudly as my emotions when I worship the
Lord.
It is noteworthy that the Bible teaches that a true faith stands on
these two legs – our heart, that is a hearty trust in the Lord and our
mind that is a certain knowledge of the Word of God.
In the passage we have read it is clear that the issues under
discussion deal with the assembly where God is worshipped and glorified.
- In the
process of communal worship one person should not be doing his own
thing without the others being able to fully identify with him and join
in with the worship.
- That is
the reason why a particular matter is repeated a few times. That is
that everything we do during the public worship must to the
edification, comforting and encouraging of the congregation (verses 3,
4, 5 and 12). The three words that are used mean:
- The first
means litterally that the congregation must be united and built up like
a family;
- The
second means that attention must be paid to their sorrows.
- The third
that the courage they have lost must be reinvigorated and strengthened.
In this passage are mentioned various means which are employed in the
congregation to achieve these aims.
- One is
the various languages spoken in order to bring the gospel to people of
different tongues. Apparently this occurred only in the church of
Corinth.
- Unfortunately, because mankind is in a sinful fallen state,
people tend
to do wrong, even in the employment of the best gifts which God uses in
the church.
So it was that it became so important to the people in this church to
speak in a language other than their mother tongue that this became a
show piece and a measure of the greatness of your faith.
- Some
people would stand up and utter strange sounds and claim that they were
speaking some foreign language. The rest of the congregation heard
these sounds without being able to understand what was being said.
- Clearly a
number of members of the church did not like this. Hence Paul warns the
church that there is a condition subject to which a language is to be
spoken, that is that the congregation must understand it because they
must be edified, and comforted and they must be encouraged to live
their lives joyfully. There must be a balance between emotion and mind.
Together with the preaching of the Word in foreign languages the Holy
Spirit also mentions prayers and singing together. For these two
liturgic actions the same principles apply as for speaking in strange
languages.
In this service we look at singing during devotion. It is clear that we
must sing. Everywhere in the Bible we read that the church must praise
the Lord with their song when they gather in worship.
Let us look at what the Bible tells us about what goes with the
congregation's singing.
- What musical instruments may we use
for accompaniment?
- We may
certainly use the same instruments that the Lord permitted over the
centuries.
- We read
in 2 Chronicles 23:13 of trumpeters and singers with musical
instruments singing the Lord's praise.
- In Job
21:12 we read of the tambourine, harp and flute.
- Psalm 150
mentions all the musical instruments in use in those days – trumpets,
harp, lyre, flute, drums and cymbals.
- What must
we sing?
- Our singing must glorify the Lord. To do this we must sing of
that of
which we know so that we can consciously serve the Lord.
- Consider for example the Israelites just after their crossing
of the
Red Sea:
"Then
Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:
"I will sing to the Lord, for He is
highly exalted. The horse and its
rider He has hurled into the sea." (Exodus 15:1)
- Our praise to the Lord when we praise Him must reach all people:
- Remember the words of the song of Deborah as we read it in Judges
5:3:
"Hear this, you kings! Listen, you
rulers! I will sing to the Lord, I
will sing; I will make music to the Lord, the God of Israel."
- There is an example of a Psalm of thanks that the church had to
learn.
In 1 Chronicles 16:7 it is written that on the day that David wrote the
Psalm "Give thanks to the Lord" he
committed it to Asaph and his
associates to sing.
- In church we must sing of the Lord's righteous deeds. We sing of
how He
guides the church.
- We must do so especially in troubled times. We read that the
archers
sang of the righteous acts of the Lord, the righteous acts of his
warriors in Israel and then the people of the Lord went down to the
city gates. (Judges 5:11)
- It is written in 1 Chronicles 16:9+23 "Sing to the Lord, all the earth;
proclaim His salvation day after day!"
- Job used song to the Lord to confess his sins (Job 33:27). He
sings and
says "I sinned and perverted what was
right, but I did not get what I
deserved".
- We must also sing of the Lord's graciousness in which we trust.
We must
sing of His salvation.
- In our worshipful singing we must speak of God's true love and
the
salvation He gives. (Psalm 13:6)
- When we become depressed we must in our song convert our
depression
into hope in the Lord. (Psalm 42:5+6, Psalm 43:5) "Put your hope in
God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God."
The apostles sang hymns to God when lying ill with their flogged bodies
in prison.
- In this way they brought the gospel to other prisoners (Acts
16:25).
- Paul and Silas on that occasion prayed and sang hymns to the Lord
at
midnight and the other prisoners were listening to them.
- We can also comfort and encourage each other with our hymns.
- In Ephesians 5:19 the Lord tells us to sing to one another with
psalms,
hymns and spiritual songs, and to sing to the Lord with our whole heart.
How must we sing? The Bible tells us of various ways in which we can
sing.
- Sometimes all sang together.
- Sometimes the men and the women sang alternately.
- Sometimes the priests and the assembly sang alternately.
- After the crossing of the Red Sea Miriam sang and the people
followed
her in song. (Exodus 15:2)
We must sing with dignity.
- The National Synod decided against the use of popular melodies
for the
Psalms because it was of the opinion that superficialisation of the
music would result in the contents of what is being sung becoming
shallow.
- Why did the churches that gathered in the Synod attach such
importance
to the music? Because our singing must express a particular attitude.
It must be clear from the sound and the kind of music that we serve the
Lord. Hence we cannot sing just any words or use just any melody.
- We read of an occasion when Moses came down the mountain with the
two
tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. He could hear from
their singing that the people were not busy worshipping the Lord.
Joshua thought that the people were at war, Moses thought that they
were feasting. When they arrived in the camp they found the people
dancing around the golden calf. That is why it was decided at the
meetings of our church that our church music should not sound like
worldly music or war music. Remember the words of Moses: "Moses
replied: It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat;
it is the sound of singing I hear." (Exodus 32:18)
Our singing in church must also be edifying.
- Shortly before his death, the Lord told Moses that His people
would one
day forsake Him. They would then do wrong and worship idols.
The Lord then gave Moses the words of a song which he had to write down
and teach the Israelites so that it could be a witness against them:
"Now
write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites
and make them sing it, so that it may be a witness for Me against
them." (Deuteronomy 31:9)
- The command is – teach them! See to it that they sing it! The
gospel of
Christ must be in us in all its richness. We must edify one another
with wisdom. The Lord tells how to do it – "Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with
gratitude in your hearts to God." (Colossians 3:16)
Jesus was surrounded by song.
- At His birth the angels sang of the salvation the Most High was
bringing to mankind.
- In the week of His death the multitude led Him into Jerusalem
with
songs of joy. It is not without reason that it is so.
We can worship the Lord with our prayers without song but we can never
sing without praying at the same time, because we either thank Him with
our song or we exalt His glory with our song or we pray Him for what we
need in our song.
- Anybody who knows what the death on the cross of the Lord Jesus
means
cannot but thank and praise the Lord with songs of praise to glorify
Him and to thank Him for His grace.
- One is reminded of Psalm 104:33: "I will sing to the Lord all my
life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live."
"As
long as I live" refers to more than this life on earth because in
the Hereafter I will still be there. Even in Heaven we shall still with
our song praise the Lord for all His grace. We read three times of what
the people in Heaven sing."
- We read in Revelation 5:9 that the people in heaven sang a new
song:
"And
they sang a new song:
You are worthy to take the scroll
And to open the seals
Because you were slain,
And with your blood you purchased men
For God from every tribe and language
And people and nations." (Revelation
5:9)
- The second time is when John sees people singing a new song
before the
throne and the four living creatures and the elders. What is noteworthy
is that nobody could learn the song except the 144 000 who had been
redeemed on earth. (Revelation 14:3)
- The third passage tells us that we shall sing a very old song,
the song
of Moses: "And sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song
of the Lamb: "Great and marvelous are
your deeds, Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, King of the ages." (Revelation 15:3)
Our singing during public worship is a prelude to our singing in the
Hereafter. It is wrong not to try to join in the singing or to consider
church song as inferior.
- A warning is contained in what the apostle John saw – those who
could
not learn the song are those who are not redeemed by the blood of
Christ. They are the people who refused to serve the Lord rightly and
righteously.
May we be part of the multitude who will sing this song of Moses in
which we glorify God and the Lamb because we truly know Him in His
greatness and in the marvel of His works. Until we are there we must
now already glorify in our song the almight and righteousness and trust
of our God and King.
Amen
Closing Prayer
Psalm: 40:2+5
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen
Dr MJ du Plessis, Reformed Church
Bellville
31 October 2004
NIV