The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Joe Bicke with the following message entitled, Why We Should Sing the Songs. All right. Good to be here this morning let's turn to Psalm 149 Psalm 149. Let's hear the word of God. Praise ye the Lord.

Sing unto the Lord a new song in his praise in the congregation of Saints let Israel rejoice in him that made him but the children of Zion be joyful in their King Let them praise his name in the dance, let them sing praises unto him with a timbrel and harp. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people, he will beautify the meek with salvation. Let the Saints be joyful in glory, Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron to execute them upon them the judgment written this honor have all his saints praise ye the Lord let's pray together great and glorious God the giver of the Psalms we thank you so much for this wonderful hymn book provided in thy own sacred word that we may use in family worship, private worship, in public worship to sing thy praises. And we ask Lord that in this brief talk together this morning We may grow in appreciation for the multiple reasons why we should sing from Thy own divinely given, inspired, inerrant hymnbook.

Thank you so much Lord for the Psalms. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Martin Luther said about the Psalms that if you couldn't identify with them, you're not a Christian. He said, if you don't count David to be one of your best friends, I doubt if you're a Christian because the Psalms speak to everyone's experience.

Speak to everyone's experience. And it's in a sense embarrassing that we have this topic this morning because for 1950 years the question, should we sing the Psalms would never have risen. For all those years all kinds of Christians use the Psalms in worship claiming them as prose texts in Greek or Latin or singing them in metrical versions. That is the Hebrew Psalms rendered into lyric poetry according to the forms of a given language. And so set tunes suitable to the Psalms for congregational use.

All of that began to change a little bit in the late 18th century and especially 19th and 20th century. But it's particularly the last half of the last century that psalm singing or psalmody has almost disappeared from many churches and many groups of English speaking Christians. Now I'm happy to say that in the last few decades there's been a revival of interest in Psalmity in many quarters. Let me just give you a quick rundown. The Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America has produced two widely used versions of the Metrical Psalms.

The Books of Psalms for Singing, 1973. The Book of Psalms for Worship, 2009. Great Commission Publications cooperated with Crown and Covenant to produce Trinity Psalter 2000, a companion to the well-known Trinity Hymnal 1990. That's used by many congregations in the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Associate Reform Presbyterian Church has published the ARP Psalter with Bible Songs 2011.

Meanwhile, the Free Reform churches, the Heritage Reform Congregations, and the Protestant Reform churches continue to use the 1912 Psalter, which was produced by a joint committee of nine Presbyterian and Reformed churches under the leadership of the old United Presbyterian Church of North America. And today it's published by Reformation Heritage Books. The Christian Reformed Church publishes two versions of its Psalter Hymnal, both of which are based on the version of 1912 and recently issued another volume, Psalms for All Seasons, 2012. For those who love the Geneva Psalter, a large selection of Psalms sent to their proper Geneva tunes are included in all of these books. But the complete Geneva Psalter has been published in English by the Canadian Reform Churches as part of their book appraise 1984.

And then Blue Banner Books of Texas has published the comprehensive Psalter 2000. So there's good news on the horizon. Never has there been so many Psalm-singing books produced in such a short period of time. So why should we sing the Psalms? And we want to ride the crest of this movement and give you backbone behind it.

And I want to divide the answer to this question into three major groups. Three major groups. And I'm going to give you three reasons under every group. I tell my students never to have more than a four-point sermon. This is going to be a nine-point sermon.

Three groups of three reasons. You got it? Let's go. First of all, the first major group is I want to look at the biblical basis or warrant the biblical basis or warrant for the singing of Psalms. Reason number one.

God gave the Psalms for Israel and all nations to sing. Where did the book of Psalms come from? Well, though several men contributed to it, its principal human composer was David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, who wrote about half the psalms. And he organized the Levites under the leadership of Asaph to sing these Psalms and play musical instruments for the service of the temple that Solomon would build. David even proposed a selection of his own Psalms for a special service of thanksgiving to inaugurate their use in 1st Chronicles 15 and 16.

Now some of these temple musicians were also prophets who were divinely inspired so that they too could write quote the songs of the Lord 1st Chronicles 25 verses 1 and 7 so began the composition and collection of what we call the book of Psalms this traditional Hebrew title is safer to him book of praises The Hebrew title could also be translated Book of Prayers or Book of Hymns. Our English title is derived from the Greek and Latin versions being based on the Greek words psalmos from the verb persolo meaning to sing psalms. So God intended the Psalms obviously to be sung, to be sung by Israel in public worship. And so some of the Psalms are inscribed specifically for that reason. And don't forget, we believe that also the inscriptions in the Psalms are inspired by God.

Psalm 92 is inscribed a psalm or song for the Sabbath day and it begins it's a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord to sing praises unto thy name O Most High. Now that's not to deny that these Psalms are also prayers. That's a beautiful thing about the Psalms. I don't know if you've ever done that, but it's beautiful. You actually get on your knees in private, open your Bible, and start reading the Psalm and read it a verse at a time and take each verse and turn it around into a petition and pray the Psalms it's very very powerful a powerful way to pray so the Psalms are full of doctrine full of practical instruction the Hebrew words for sing or for song appear 180 times in 150 Psalms.

So the Psalms cry out to be sung. And therefore it's no surprise that when King Hezekiah restored the worship of Judah he commanded, 2 Chronicles 29 verse 30 says, he commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph. Now we should not think that the Psalms are exclusively, however, for Israel's use. Often what people don't realize is that the Psalms were designed for all nations. And the Psalms themselves tell us that.

Psalm 96 verse 1, O sing unto the Lord a new song, sing unto the Lord all the earth. Psalm 100 verse 1, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Psalm 117 verse 1, O praise the Lord all ye nations, praise him all ye people. There are dozens of Psalms that have a missionary emphasis and expectation and at least a half a dozen of those say that all nations will turn and worship the Lord. So why should we sing the Psalms?

Reason number one, God gave them to be sung by his whole church, Jew and Gentile alike, under the Old Covenant and under the New. But there are two more very important biblical words for singing the Psalms. So reason number two, the Psalms reveal Christ in his suffering and glory. Now though written under the Old Covenant, the Psalms are extremely relevant for God's New Covenant people. Isn't it interesting that of the many times the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, over 40% of those quotations are from the Psalms.

40% from one of the 39 books. Obviously, the Psalms have the greatest impact upon the New Testament saints of all Old Testament books. And 116 times the New Testament quotes the Psalms directly. Epistle to Hebrews alone quotes 10 different Psalms. Now our Lord Jesus Christ taught us that the Psalms are about him.

Luke 24 44 says he said unto them These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. You see, though we are no longer under the law of Israel, the Old Testament is not an obsolete document. The old Puritans used to say, God speaks to us through two lips. One is the Old Testament, One is the new. One is promise.

The other fulfillment. The Old Testament testifies of Christ Jesus said in John 5 39. They speak of me. So What does the Old Testament teach us about Christ? What do the Psalms teach us about Christ?

Well, they teach us about his sufferings, his resurrection, his exaltation, his triumphant work in saving sinners. Let me read you what Martin Luther wrote in his preface to his commentary on the Psalms in 1531. The Psalter ought to be so precious and so dear that we're it for nothing else but the clear promise it holds forth respecting Christ's death and resurrection and its prefiguration of His kingdom and of the whole estate and system of Christianity, insomuch that the Psalms might well be entitled a little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended and compacted into a little hand manual." Isn't that a fascinating quote? Luther says, You want a little miniature Bible? Just read the Psalms.

The Psalms are full of Christ. The statements plainly refer to Christ like Psalm 110 verse 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand. There you've got Christ's session and intercession. Then there are poignant prophecies of his death and suffering.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm 22. Furthermore, it's not just the plainly messianic Psalms that point us to Christ. I want you to think of three things. In the Psalms we sing to Christ, to Christ, whenever we praise God as our rock and our shield and our king and so on.

Second, the Psalms teach us to sing with Christ. For in his human nature he too sang and grew up with the Psalms. I'll return to that in a bit. And three, the Psalms lead us to sing of Christ, to Christ, with Christ, and of Christ. The Psalms everywhere are pregnant with Jesus Christ.

And therefore, they're suitable for the New Covenant Church as well. They talk about him in his person, in his offices, his sufferings, and his glory. Reason number three for a biblical warrant for singing the Psalms. Christ and the New Testament Church sang the Psalms. The Lord Jesus Christ is our great example of a true man of God.

Paul said, follow me in so far as I follow Christ. Jesus didn't have to put that condition down. He could just say follow me Simon follow me Matthew period and Jesus was a singing Savior follow me saved saints sing and what did he sing Matthew 26 30 tells us and when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. And the words, sing a hymn, that's Matthew 2630, who o, mean to sing a song of praise to God. And it was the tradition at Passover, which it was at that point, they would sing the great Hallel, consisting of Psalms 113 through 118.

And so what Jesus was doing the night before he was crucified, he was with his chosen disciples worshipping God through the singing of Psalms. And after his resurrection, As the gospel preaching gathered churches from the Jews and Gentiles, the New Testament Church sang the Psalms. Ephesians 5 18 and 19 says, Be filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves or to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." All three of those words by the way, psalms, hymns, spiritual songs overlap in meaning and they're used, They're parallel words that are used by the Septuagint of different sections of the Psalms. John Cotton, the Puritan, said that these same words are the very titles of the Songs of David as they are delivered to us by the Holy Ghost himself. So we may conclude that Paul taught churches to sing the Psalms as a rich and varied collection of sacred song.

Now we have then a biblical warrant to sing the Psalms and in that warrant we have this wonderful unique divine collection of inspired songs like no other collection because every word is inerrant in these psalms. These psalms are the gift of God to his church and in obedience to his will God requires his people to offer the sacrifice of praise to him in public worship with the very words he's given us to praise him. It just makes sense doesn't it? We have a biblical warrant, even an obligation, to sing the Psalms in worship. But now that's where A lot of people stop in their offensive arguments for Psalm singing, but that's where I like to take off because these three reasons are just your biblical basis.

There's many, many other benefits. So My second section of my talk is the experiential benefits of singing the Psalms. That is, how do you experience benefit in your soul through singing the Psalms? So in other words, in this section, I'm arguing it's not only our biblical duty, it's also for our spiritual good. It establishes and strengthens our minds and hearts in God's grace.

Well then, reason number four. Singing the Psalms causes the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly. Colossians 3 16. 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 So the very construction of this sentence shows that Paul equates psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with the word of Christ. You get that?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, And what is that word of Christ? It's psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Few activities stir up our hearts more than singing. Music engages the affections and it imprints words on our memory bank. And that's why the Puritans used to say in their seven or eight steps of how you meditate every day, the art of meditation they called it, You always end your meditation with singing a song because they said singing will imprint those words on your memory the longest so you do it the last thing so you take it away with you into your day.

And so what better way to stir up our hearts with the word of God than by singing the word of God. You have a family that's been coming to our church lately. They drive about an hour and a quarter, I think. Ten children, beautiful family. And they sing the Psalms literally.

That's how they memorize them. The whole family, down to the four-year-old, has Psalm 119, all 176 verses, memorized without a flaw. And they sing it. They make their own tunes and they sing it. We've heard them sing it in our presence.

It's just absolutely beautiful. Now, it'd be very hard to memorize 176 verses if you didn't sing them. But singing has a way of fostering memorization and it sinks down. William Ames, the great Puritan said, Psalm Singing brings a kind of sweet delight to godly minds and it helps a fixed and distinct meditation so that it results in edification. Singing the Psalms will enrich our hearts with the truth of God.

John Calvin said we should sing the Psalms with voice and heart with our minds focused on the spiritual meaning of the words. And he quoted Augustine who said when we sing these songs, that is the Psalms, we are certain that God puts the words into our mouths as if He were singing in us to exalt His own glory. You see, Christ Himself leads his people in offering praise to God. I don't know if you've ever paid attention to Hebrews 2 verse 12, but it's an amazing verse. It refers back to Psalm 22 verse 22 in which Christ says, I will declare thy name unto my brethren.

This is Christ speaking. And in the midst of the church, let this sink down, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. So as those who by faith are grafted into Christ and filled with the Spirit, we never sing alone. According to his promise Christ is present in our assemblies for worship and he's assisting us by his Spirit and offering the sacrifice of praise in the Psalms to God. Wow.

Why would you, why would you in your church not sing any Psalms and if you know that when the Psalms are being sung the inspired word of God is being sung, Christ is in the midst and He Himself is singing praise with you and you say, well now I just want man-made compositions. Doesn't make sense. For your own benefit, your own spiritual benefit, sing the Psalms. I would argue that would extend to your private life, to your family life, as well as to public worship. Reason number five.

Singing the Psalms fills us with God's Spirit. Look at Ephesians 5 18. Be drunk not with wine where in is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. And then it goes on to say, sing the Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs. So the contrast is between drunkenness and the filling with the Spirit.

Sinners give themselves over to the control of mind-altering substances in search of momentary euphoria, But saints give themselves over to the control of the Holy Spirit who gives real joy and real comfort through the singing of the Psalms. And so we must let the Spirit be the true wine of our souls is what Paul is saying. Puritan Thomas Ford put it this way, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is not only water to cleanse and wash, but it's also our wine to cheer and refresh. So practically speaking, how do people experience the fullness of the Spirit? Well, speaking to yourselves.

The apostle goes right on, be filled with the Spirit, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord and singing. Puritan Paul Bain wrote this, the exercise of psalm singing is a means of increasing in us the Spirit. Just as singing the devil's songs, Bain goes on to say, fills people with immorality, so God's song is of great force to make us to be filled of his good Spirit. If you're a Christian, you want the Holy Spirit to fill you, don't you? Use the means of grace.

Sing the Psalms. Reason number six. Singing the Psalms enables us to worship God in every experience. We don't come to the worship of God as blank slates. We come full of thoughts, full of feelings, full of troubles, a bundle of needs.

Someone said we're like a bunch of sticks loosely tied. Bundle of needs, all the sins and the mud and filth of the previous week. We don't view worship as a form of escapism where for a little while we can pretend that none of the evil and grief in the world is really there. Instead, we come to worship bringing all that we are to God, as Psalm 62 says, pouring out our hearts before him. You see, Paul spoke not only of the Spirit moving us to praise the Lord and rejoicing in the Lord, but also the Spirit moving us to cry out to the Lord even with groanings that are unutterable.

And the Psalms are immensely helpful here. John Calvin said, I have been accustomed to call the book of the Psalms, I think not inappropriately, an anatomy of all the parts of the soul. For there is not an emotion of which one can be conscious that is not here represented before us as in a mirror. Understand what Calvin is saying? There's not a single experience that you will have in this life that is somehow reflected on the emotional level in the Psalms.

The Psalms will give you advice on how to respond to that thing, that emotion or that experience or that fear or that hope or that dream. Are you deeply convicted of sin? Psalm 32 5 says, I acknowledge my sin unto thee, my iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and thou forgaveth iniquity my sin. Are you persecuted?

Psalm 3 1-3 says, Lord how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. There's no help for him in God, they say, but thou, O Lord, are the shield for me. My glory will lift her up on my head. Are you depressed, perhaps spiritually depressed?

Psalm 42, why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who's the health of my countenance and my God do you feel forgotten by God Psalm 13 are the lady in my church and every single time I came there before I opened my Bible she'd say, Read to me Psalm 13. She just felt forsaken. She struggled with that.

Psalm 13 begins, How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever! How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? And then verse 5, But I have trusted in thy mercy. My Heart will rejoice in Thy salvation.

Are you in danger of thinking that it might be better to sin than to obey? Psalm 73, As for me, my feet were almost gone, My steps said, Well, I slipped, I was envious at the foolish, until I went into the sanctuary of God and then understood I therein. How are they brought into destruction as in a moment? Are you troubled by the sinful attitudes of those around you? Psalm 120, my soul hath longed to dwell with him that hateth peace.

My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace, but when I speak they are for war. Are you fearful of the times dismayed by current developments in our nation that pose such a threat to the well-being of God's people? Psalm 56, what time I'm afraid I will put my trust indeed. You see, everywhere, the Psalms speak to our experience, and they comfort us.

They lift up the downcast. They provide God-centered, Christ-centered spiritual riches for the needy. John Calvin said, the Psalms are a treasury book of Christian comfort. The Psalms link our subjective experience to the reality of God. Gerhardus Vos says, the book of Psalms voices the subjective response to the objective doings of God for and among his people.

That's why the Psalms are such a model book for prayer. They show us how to intercede for the Church. They teach us to flee to God through prayer for all our needs and for salvation itself and to pray confidently even when we're in the midst of adversity. There are rich experiential benefits for singing the Psalms. But my third and last section of why we should sing the Psalms, I'm just entitling this the beauty and glory, the beauty and glory of singing the Psalms.

So we don't sing them only because there's a biblical basis in warrant and because it reflects our experience and helps us forward in the spiritual life, But there's just sheer beauty and the glory of God in the Psalms that make them edifying to sing. So reason number seven. The Psalms unite us with believers of all times. The Psalms unite us with believers of all times. You see, man-made songs of worship can have great personal meaning.

We all know some of the great hymns that just are really meaningful. They resonate with us. But most man-made songs have a short shelf life. You know I've been writing books all my life and one of the most depressing things about writing a book, a lot of good things about writing a book, but one of the most depressing things about writing a book is usually after four or five years people are saying, so what else is new? It's a short shelf life.

Well, in a way, you hope that books will outlive you in some circles. But I mean, really flourishing sales of a book have two to three years usually, and things start to slow down. It's the same thing with man-made songs. Most songs that people sing are, they're gone. The next generation has never heard of them.

But the Psalms unite us with a church of all times and all ages. You know when you sing a Psalm in church you're singing the very same song that David and Isaiah and Daniel and Peter and James sang. And Peter and James sang. We worship in vital unity even with the Old Testament saints said Gehertes Vos for we are sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with Abraham. And so when you sing the Psalms, not only is Jesus singing with you his own word, but so were the disciples singing these very songs.

Augustine, Chrysostom, Calvin, the great leaders of the church were singing the very psalms that we sing down through the ages. Actually Calvin did a lot of work on the Psalms in producing a full Psalm book. It was very dear to his heart. And it's interesting that it's only in the Psalms. You know Calvin hated to talk about himself Only a handful of times in all his writings does he even mention himself, even for a sentence or two.

But it's in the preface to the Psalms that he actually has the longest excursus about himself. It's a couple paragraphs. He really indulged himself there to talk about himself for a couple paragraphs. Tells us about his conversion. And in those few paragraphs, Calvin says something like this, uncharacteristic of Calvin, I count myself to be qualified to be a commentator in the Psalms.

Say what Calvin? You're boasting? This is very very unlike you. And then he goes on to say, because I've experienced all these things that Dave is talking about. You see there is a beautiful unity in singing the Psalms with the church of all ages.

I'm a church historian. My doctorate's in Reformation, post-Reformation history. I can get very nostalgic just singing a psalm thinking that, you know, Calvin wrote on this psalm. Calvin's soul was aroused by this psalm. But maybe that doesn't get you nostalgic, but it ought to get you nostalgic to think of how David resonated with this psalm, how Jesus is singing with this psalm.

You can't say that of any man-made compositions. So there's a multi-generational prophetic vision of the Psalms. We join our praise with the offerings of all the past generations of the saints. And what a joy that is. What a joy that is.

And in this singing, the Psalms themselves show us the depth of communion we may enjoy with our covenant-keeping God. So they're a vehicle, aren't they, for communal worship. In fact, many of our Psalms use the first person plural pronouns, we and our, to indicate this communal aspect. So I like to look at it this way. When we sing the Psalms, We join our praise with the offering of past generations.

We are engaging communal worship with the present generation and we reach out at the same time to future generations, passing on to them a legacy of biblical worship. Same with Psalm 102 verse 18. This shall be written for the generation to come and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord. And then reason number eight. The Psalms lift up our eyes to the hope of glory.

The Psalms lift up our eyes to the hope of glory. Psalms do something very beautiful. They relate to all our needs, our spiritual experiences, they address our personal problems, our longings for deliverance, all of these things. But their vision is much grander than all of these things. They look forward to the coming again of God to judge the world.

They look forward to complete the redemption of the people of God and of all creation. The prospect of the future is God-centered to the highest degree in the Psalms. The Psalms declare God's kingdom will come. The psalmist actually teaches us in many psalms to sing of it as though it had already happened by way of anticipation. Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad.

Psalm 96, 11 through 13. Let the sea roar in the fullness above. Let the field be joyful. All there is therein. Let all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for he cometh, he cometh to judge the earth.

He shall judge the earth with righteousness and the people with his truth. What a glorious thing this is. The Psalms cultivate in us a God-sized hope That transcends our personal selfish singing about what I feel and I want and how I am and they raise us to the glory of the Triune God. They raise us above contemporary issues and national problems and they help us to focus upon the Living God. Anthony Salvaggio says the Psalms hold before our eyes the reality that God has intruded and will intrude into history in cataclysmic ways, ultimately yielding everlasting peace and rest for His people.

Psalm singing equips the people to be on watch for God's kingdom. For God's kingdom. Finally, reason number nine. The Psalms keep God supreme. The Psalms keep God supreme in our worship.

You know, Psalm singing has always been a hallmark of biblical faith, devotion, and daily life. And no wonder the reformed vision of the sovereign God who's made all things for his own glory, who works all things after the counsel of his own will, and who has revealed his glory and will supremely in his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, is rooted in the book of the Psalms. There's no book of praise more perfectly suited to the faith of God-centered Christians than this book. The Psalms teach us to sing of God's sovereignty. The Lord reigneth, he's clothed with majesty.

God's wisdom, how manifold are thy works in wisdom, thou hast made them all. God's love, give thanks to the Lord for his good, his mercy, his love, endures forever. The heartbeat of the Psalms is given to the Lord, the glory due unto his name. You know, when you raise a family, you never have to teach a single one of your children to be selfish. It's the natural depravity of their hearts as it is of all of us.

And when in family worship every single day you sing a psalm and every single day that psalm ultimately focuses on God as the psalms are so fond of doing. It's a subtle way, a drip at a time, a day at a time. Twenty years, your children are in your home, that's 7, 300 family worship opportunities, I've counted them. 7, 300 times you have an example, you have a chance to sing a psalm. And you're teaching your children through thousands of singings.

Center on God. Focus on God. We're not here for ourselves. We're here to glorify God. One generation shall praise thy works to another, Psalm 145, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

My mouth shall speak of the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. Give glory, give glory to the Lord, for it is due unto his name From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised That's what you want to teach your children That's what you want at the heartbeat of your worship service No better way to do that than a constant singing of the Psalms. Alright, let me conclude then by saying this. Church history records that when men began to turn away from a God-centered faith, they also began to turn away from the Psalter. The vision of the sovereign God found in the Psalms proved to be unpalatable to those who wanted to make much of man's free will and fancied ability to be his own savior.

And conversely, how can we then hope to recover biblical faith in our day if we do not feed our faith with what Martin Lloyd-Jones called the iron rations of the soul found in the book of Psalms? So where do you begin? Well if Psalmity is new to you, get one of the metrical versions of the Psalms I mentioned at the beginning, look for a favorite Psalm perhaps, set to a tune you already know I just begin as the Psalms themselves say begin making a joyful noise into the Lord start with what you know and then expand into the riches of this book of praise that you don't know. On your discover for yourself very quickly is a divine triune centrality, divine life and power in these songs that are a means of drawing you near to Christ, enabling you to feed on the riches of His grace. And you'll learn by firsthand experience that these are truly the songs of the Lord and the words of Christ and a divinely appointed means of grace for your soul.

And so I close with this quotation. It's a quotation from the words of Donald McLaren who writes concerning the Psalms this, Those that worship Him in truth tremble at His word. He not only requires them to present, but directs them where they will find the appointed offerings of praise, pure and acceptable. They follow his directions. They go to the broad bright field of revelation.

Directly before them when they enter it. They behold, as it were, in the center of the field a garden enclosed, and over it are gates that are written, praise! Its fruit is for the throne of God, and they that gather it may eat it and praise the Lord. Various, pleasant, and good is its fruit, so good that angels would be pleased to gather it, so abundant that all the angels of heaven and all the redeemed from among men would not be able by their gathering to make it less. Its trees of life, " this is all about the Psalms, "...beautiful as fruitful, were pruned when planted of old by the hand of God.

And it needs not that the hand of man should prune it again, or to plant any more. This is the appointed, perfect paradise of praise for the church on earth from which we may get a good view of all the wondrous works of God and especially a good view of the sufferings and glories of Christ and by the light of that glory of this book of praise we get a good view of the paradise of praise and bliss prepared in heaven for the redeemed. Here let us stay and keep all these things in view and let us praise the Lord. Let's pray. Great God of heaven we thank you so much for this wonderful book of praise.

We thank you for giving it to us And we pray that we would use it for the purpose for which it was designed, public and private and family singing. And we pray that it may reach the purpose for which it was given, that we would end up praising Thee, O God, not centering upon ourselves, but bringing all that is subjective in our religion to the objective so that we would exalt Thee and Learn to praise thee from whom all blessings flow Make us more God-centered Through Psalms singing we pray and bless this lecture in Jesus name. Amen Well, I think we have seven minutes left. Have you got any questions? We are happy to entertain a couple questions or you got a full day you can take a break.

Yes sir. How we sing the songs of Christ. And there are several songs that talk about the anguish that sin has brought upon the singer. And could you explain how we're going to more detail about this Christ as our sin bearer and as our earth and you can sing that and the sin that he's bearing. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Sure, sure. Yes. The question is to talk just a little bit about Christ and how he relates to the anguish of Sin and bearing sin and the struggles related to sin in the Psalms. Immediately what springs to my mind is of course is Psalm 22 but there are many others. But it's interesting when I preached on, which is the most awesome word to ever preach on in the Bible, I think.

The fourth word of Christ from the cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That is, of course, a direct quote from Psalm 22, where you see the anguish of Christ firsthand. I mean, obviously it was David's anguish as well, but ultimately it was Christ's anguish and one thing that really brought Christ into so much anguish there was that he did not get an answer And that's what you see in Matthew 27. In the height of his suffering, he speaks and there's no answer to his question. And you go back to Psalm 22 and let me just read that to you because it's pretty powerful.

You see, he's actually living out the experience of that Messianic Psalm in a very vibrant and poignant way. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? And from the words of my roaring, O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not and in the night season and still I'm not and not silent but thou O Lord art holy who inhabit is the praises of Israel and so on so Christ in his anguish is experiencing those things and then when a believer experiences God to be far away and God to be silent through the Psalm and through the Psalm singing you identify with the Psalmist but even as you do you identify with your Savior and you get this incredible comfort because God was silent to him and he endured the substance of the horrific silence of God and you only have to endure the shadow following behind him and you're only just a partake of his suffering not in a meritorious way not dealing with the essence of it but just a shadow of it and so you know he's born this silence for you so that you may be set free and that he will speak to you and therefore in the midst of your agony you surrender yourself to Christ and you find peace in him.

That's an example but there's many more. Thank you for raising that question it's a good question yes sir Okay, that's a question I expected. Yes, our church as we are, we are exclusive psalm singers. We sing other hymns a great deal during the week. We even have a choir evening during the week where we just get together and sing hymns.

We believe there's some really great hymns. Just my position and the position of our churches that we're safer keeping the worship to Psalm singing only. The reason I didn't stress Psalm singing only for everyone is I realized that not everyone is there that's the first reason and secondly because when Scott Brown originally wrote me to ask me to do this topic he said what I want you to do is just try to persuade people of the advantage of singing psalms in the churches because I don't think a person should go into a church and say You know, I'm ordained one week and next Sunday. We're gonna sing psalms only I think the way of A wise young pastor would do it, would be, let's sing first one psalm per service and get his people used to the God centrality of the psalms. Get your people to fall in love with the psalms.

Go gradually. That's also the purpose, by the way, behind this book, singing a new song, recovering Psalm singing for the 21st century. I edited it with Anthony Salvaggio and both of us belong to denominations that are Psalm singing only, but that's really not the purpose of the book. The purpose of the book is to get you to see the value of singing the Psalms. Once you get there well then yeah some of you will become Psalms Singing only some some of you may still not be but the the point is Let's value the singing of Psalms.

That's the point of this talk. I've got time, I think, for one more question. Yes? What are your thoughts on this guy's words saying about the use of musical instruments in worship? Yeah, you opened a big can of worms.

I have one and a half minutes to address the question of musical instrumentation. That's what having a former parishioner will do to you. The question was what's your position on musical instruments what does God's word have to say musical instruments it is a big big question and I'll tell you what my position is. My position is that we are to base our patterns for worship on the New Testament because the New Testament, obviously we're not back in the ceremonial system where we take animals to the temple and Christ has fulfilled the ceremonial laws so in the New Testament we have all these rules and guidelines for worship and I believe in the regulative principle of worship I'll say more about that later in a major session today in which you don't say well everything's okay in worship that's not expressly forbidden in the Word of God that's the Lutheran position but you say we only do that which is commanded in the New Testament and the New Testament does not have instruments. Well why then do we have an organ in our church?

Well, the question is, can you use musical instruments as an incidental as the Puritan Divine said, in worship, just to help people worship? And I think you can. I'll give you an example. In my church we have 800 people, about 500 sit on the main floor in front of me, there's 100 in the balcony, and then there's a left wing that goes out this way with 200 more people. If we tried to sing acapella, we might manage for one stanza or for one verse, but these people would be singing discordantly with those people, So we have an organ that just plays softly in the background to keep people together and help the singing.

We consider that incidental. What is wrong, I believe, according to New Testament prescription, is that you don't use the instruments to focus on the instruments. The instruments should never become an essential part of the worship. So we don't have the organ play for two minutes before we start singing. And we don't bring in any other instruments.

We think an organ is sufficient to do that. Now if you have only a guitar and that does the same purpose and there's no attention given to the guitar or the guitarist, whatever, I mean that's up to you. But the point is musical instrumentation should only be an incidental, and not the focus on the musical instrument. Alright, we'll end on that very controversial note. Thank you so much for coming.

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