The Psalms Part 4 of 4 - The Business of Heaven

When in Our Music God is Glorified

When in our music God is glorified,
and adoration leaves no room for pride,
it is as though the whole creation cried
Alleluia!

How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!

So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
in faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
borne witness to the truth in every tongue,
Alleluia!

And did not Jesus sing a psalm that night
when utmost evil strove against the Light?
Then let us sing, for whom He won the fight,
Alleluia!

Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always
Alleluia! Amen.

--Words: Fred Pratt Green, 1972
--Music: Charles Villiers Standford, 1904

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. -- Acts 16:25 (NIV)

Music is in our very core of existence. It is the most recognized form of the self externalized. Depending on the culture, the religious influence, or the lack of it, music and songs offer a glimpse into our being. Music, and often times with lyrics, portrait life's kaleidoscopic emotions and hopes. The palette of sweet, sanguine, and sorrow vicissitudes are the colors of our songs. Whether we are musicians or not, there are forms of music each of us like. Seldom, however, does one ask whence came music and why.

God created man after His own image (Genesis 1:27) and just a little lower than Himself (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 8:5). Man is endowed with many attributes akin to his Creator. Even fallen from grace since the days of Eden, the attribute for man to make music still abides. Through God's revelation, the higher purpose of music is for man to remind himself that he was created for the sole purpose of praising and extolling his Creator

From Revelation 14:3 (KJV) we read "no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." Numerology and cultic interpretation aside, this passage from the Bible attested Christ is to be praised by those He has purchased. In spite of the romantic notion we hear angels sing when we are in courtship, and love is in bloom ("And the Angels Sing"), God did not ordain these heavenly hosts faculties for making music. Angels can praise God (Luke 2:12-14; ). God did not redeem the heavenly hosts nor the fallen angels. He redeemed his highest and loved creation - man. The school of sorrow the saved souls experienced on earth heightens the joy of salvation is beyond all superlatives and metaphors. There will be no more tears in His presence (Revelation 21:-5). The chorus of the redeemed shall sing in heaven the triumphant hymn praising Jesus for His redemptive sacrifice (Revelation 5:9). The business of heaven is for man to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. (Note: It is beyond the scope of this post to offer a discussion why the chief end of man is to praise God and to enjoy Him forever.)

As His redeemed, our hearts and actions are to reflect what God's grace has done in us. The question is not one of being saved from eternal damnation, but of being saved to manifest Christ in our lives (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 4:10). Since God created man for His own pleasure (Ecclesiastes 12:13, TEV), one facet of manifesting Christ in the Christian life is to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). Our God also takes great pleasure to those who honor and worship Him in songs (Psalm 147:11; 149:4).

There are songs and hymns referenced throughout the Bible. For every mentioning of a song in the Bible, there was an associated testimony to God's greatness and mercy. The very first song ever recorded (no pun) is found in Exodus 15:1-3. The song of Moses and Miriam praising God after the Israelites passed through the Red Sea. In the first song of the New Testament, Mary sang Mary's Song to her cousin Elizabeth. She exalted and praised God for choosing her to be the mother of our Lord (Luke 1:46-55). After Pentecost, prayers and the singing of hymns are in the forefront of disseminating the Gospel.

Every book in the Bible before Acts is focused on God's enduring love for Israel, His chosen people. From Acts onward, we see God's second part of the promise to Abraham "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed," is being fulfilled (Genesis 12:1-3). In Acts, we read for the first time the painful and sometimes life forfeiting implications in completing the Great Commission (Matthew 24:14). It is also in Acts, God provided us an overarching reminder - and the first of such in the annals of missions - singing hymns and praying both can be life giving and life sustaining.

Long before He laid down earth's foundations, God had us in mind. He had settled on us as the focus of His love, and to be made whole and holy by His love (Ephesians 1:4). God is to be revered. When we fear Him, as did the Psalmists, we revere and worship with an unwavering assurance of His sovereignty. Only then will we fear nothing of this world. Absolutely nothing. Not even death (1 Corinthians 15:55). When we revere God, we love God. To love God is to live without fear (Proverbs 19:23). Acts 16 tells us how much Paul and Silas loved God.

On apostle Paul's second missionary journey and the first to Europe, in the city of Philippi, he and Silas were beaten and incarcerated (Acts 16). Yet while in prison during the middle of the night, they prayed and sang hymns praising God. And other prisoners listened (Acts 16:25). We do not know what hymns Paul and Silas sang. Paul, being the Hebrew of Hebrew (Philippians 3:5) would be no stranger to the psalms and canticles of the Old Testament. The Book of Psalms, contains phrases of "praising" God 184 times. The Psalmists are telling us praising God is the most important thing we are to care about, day and night (Psalm 113). It would not be implausible if these two men prayed and sang from memorized Psalms (e.g. Psalm 27). Whatever the case might have been, God, had given new life to the jailer and family, and substained Paul and Silas. It is noted the latter proclaimed (not shared) Christ to the others (Colossians 1:28 NASB; NIV).

Praying and and singing hymns of praise, are the most distinctive resources avail to the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 14:15); the two sides of the same conduit to God. Even in our darkest hour, we cease not in thanking and praising Him as Paul and Silas had done in Acts 16:25. We must note, in prayers and in hymns we not only encourage and edify each other (Colossians 3:16), as did Paul and Silas, we also witness to those who have not heard of the Gospel (Romans 10:14). The prisoners listened to Paul and Silas. They and the jailer heard the Good News.

The bold testimony had directly affected Paul and Silas' miraculous and spectacular release from prison and the consequent salvation of the jailer and his family. Prayers and the singing of hymns are the resources God would have us to advance His kingdom in all hours of the day. We are certain of this because our Lord also prayed and sang hymns in the days of His ministry.

In the Book of Psalms, God has demonstratively and extensively taught His people the poetry of prayers and hymns. The Psalms is the model for our mien to God. In times of joy and tears, the Psalms teaches us how to be in His presence. The Psalmists sought Him in penitence, prayer, and praise. He them in precepts and promises. Even so at His final Passover, Jesus sang/quoted Psalm 118 (Mark 12:10-11). And while being crucified, our Lord sang/quoted two of His seven lasts words from the Psalms (Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46; Luke 23:46).

God's teachings are so central to which the psalmist confessed, "Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage" (Psalm 119:54 KJV). This verse epitomizes the entire Psalter. It was Martin Luther, in a manner typical of him, asserted that the Psalms enables one to look directly into the hearts of God's people. To this day, there is no sufficient extolment on the merits and the values of the Psalter.

Our Lord is the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 1:8). He spoke the first word, and He shall have the last word. The redeemed and the rest of the world are bounded by God's word (Isaiah 55:11). Lest we forget, the initiative for us to worship is of God (1 John 4:19). He gave us His Word. We heard and responded. We say and sing back to Him what He taught us as most sure and true. And we take the blessings of His Word to the ends of the earth. Therefore, our corporate worship is not to be one of casual celebration nor cultural-centric songfest from which we feel and define what God needs to further His kingdom (cf Leviticus 10:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1-2). May God forgive such irreverent pride. The contents of our music element in worship has to resist the confused, the shallow, and the rhythmical noise of the pop culture. They must ascend to the higher ends of edification and glorification (cf 1 Corinthians 10:23; 1 Corinthians 14).

The Psalter is the bedrock for aiding our learning to perfect worship in heaven while on earth. It affords us a glimpse how God conjoin music with His Word, in spite of our not knowing the musical forms of the Psalms. Circumscribed in these psalms and prayers of God's anointing, four Scriptural principles for hymnodies are evident.

1. The condition in which we see God's unfathomable glory as our Creator (e.g. Psalm 8; Psalm 104).

2. The company to our daily walk with God. It serves to enriches and edifies us (e.g. Psalm 23; Psalm 84; Psalm 139).

3. The conveyance by which our darkness hours are ablazed with hope and His promised deliverance (e.g. Psalm 4; Psalm 142).

4. The conquering agent avail to us when life's circumstances say otherwise (e.g. Psalm 62; Psalm 63).

The best hymns of the English language were written in the 18th and 19th centuries. They all girded with elements of the Psalter principals for hymnodies. These hymns have stood the test of time in that they proclaimed Jesus as the founder, the foundation, and the fountain of our faith. In all, hymns of depth and spiritual dimension do not cheapen God's grace and the eventual business of heaven (cf Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship).

Hymns breathe the praise of the saints, the vision of the prophets,
The prayers of the penitent and the spirit of the martyrs.
They bring solace to the sad, assurance to the perplexed,
Faith to the doubter and comfort to the oppressed.

They span the centuries of history,
And bridge the barriers of denominations.
Study them to be pure in heart; sing them to be joyful in spirit,
Store them in the mind to possess a treasury of worship.