No doubt exists that popular views favor singing, not preaching. For example, songs get applause while sermons hardly raise an Amen. Vocal fame brings fans from scores of miles to hear a concert, who won’t cross the street to hear a sermon. Singers make a living holding a microphone to their mouth while technology in sound-proof rooms records their voice. And all a preacher has are sometimes weak words that echo in an empty room. Singing has many different sounds vocalizing the very same words in different arrangements. While preachers have many words spoken sometimes in a tiresome manner.
Singing often exalts our spirit and fills our emotions full. It comforts and stirs the melodic nature in even the unmusical person. Judy’s Uncle Jim, a fine Christian man, seemed to have no musical note in his soul. He never sang the hymns in church. But, one day, the words or music SO impacted him that Aunt Von said she heard him hum the melody! When you want all the above, but also want to be challenged in daily discipleship, admonished to strengthen weak areas of your Christian life, convinced to abandon bad and build good habits—and at the same be encouraged and uplifted, learn to love God’s word and its proclamation! Two concluding thoughts. One, music should encourage, not merely comfort, Christians. We listened to several signing groups during the COVID-19 shut-down. Maybe to the wrong ones. For not a single one served to encourage listeners. Since some sounded more like dirges than exaltations, how could they comfort, let alone encourage Christians? In times of stress, such as we face now, in a direct reverse-ratio, the more encouragement offered us means the less comfort needed by us. Two, therefore, as nothing encourages Christians more powerfully than God’s SPOKEN Word battering our brains with God’s Awesome Presence, Preach the WORD! The Holy Spirit energizes even the weakest words with spiritual dunamis—the Greek word for the English dynamite. Finally, singing is often circular, repeating the same words. Preaching is best when it’s linear—going on a straight line between the introduction and conclusion—leading listeners from merely listening to God’s word, or tolerating God’s word, to appreciating God’s word, to delighting in God’s word, to embracing God’s word. It changes our thinking from self to Christ, from our pleasures to our duty, from wondering what God will do for us to asking what God wants us to do for him. We don’t speculate what message would be relevant. We KNOW that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ” II Corinthians 5:18, is the ONLY message of importance. For sin has caused our lost spiritual estate, and only our reconciliation with God through Christ brings peace with God: that then restores broken friendships; heals wounded lives; strengthens weak relationships; renews blasted hopes and builds Christ-honoring discipleship. When we all come to the Cross and accept the forgiveness Jesus never fails to offer; which he offers to all and none ever leaves without receiving; when that message is sung beautifully it will stir our emotions. And when it’s proclaimed powerfully it changes our thinking, which changes lives. And that’s when we know that prophets of God have been among us. Amen! Fini.
0 Comments
Where God sees a difference between singing and preaching in worship, we must observe each one’s place. Both have appropriate places in developing reverence towards God: music the emotional; preaching the rational; music secondary by preparing hearts to accept Christ, preaching primary by moving human minds to obey Christ, leading to life-change. As Paul said in Romans 12:2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” He made the same emphasis in Colossians 3:16.
We have but one account of Jesus singing: when he and the disciples sang a hymn before leaving the Upper Room Matthew 26:30. That he sang often is obvious from the many psalms used in Jewish worship. But the continued emphasis on preaching and teaching cannot be accorded secondary status; as Mark 2:2 summarized, he “preached the word to them”. God told the prophet Amos that he had built Israel according to “plumb”, that is, according to the truth revealed in his WORD Amos 7:7-8. By turning from his WORD—the prophetic message—they had “fallen out of plumb”, that is, away from God into apostasy. And, note, they lived in their fallen state even as they continued to sing their songs and offer their sacrifices. Because they rejected his WORD, God would no longer listen to their songs or accept their sacrifices Amos 5:21-24. The contemporary church should pay attention to this truth. The psalms, representing all musical productions, are but humanity’s upreach to God, whereas God’s Word is his outreach to humanity. The exceptions in the Psalms are Spirit-breathed revelations of God’s WORD through the Psalmist, over which he had no control, but which he wrote as “carried along by the Holy Spirit” II Peter 1:21. The same rule applies to Philippians 2:5-11 and II Timothy 2:11-13. Only as God-breathed truth through the apostle Paul did hymns become Scripture! Though like ancient Israel, the modern church has no excuse for substituting heart-felt music for head-rattling preaching, we have fallaciously “gone out of plumb” by thinking we can SING people, not PREACH people, into the kingdom. We think to ENTERTAIN them into, not REPENT them towards, then BAPTIZE them INTO the kingdom. We can’t, by “having a good time at church”, secure the interest of sinners. That “feel good” approach is nothing but Hollywood or Las Vegas fluff. By imitating professional-style productions, with flashing strobe lights and full orchestras and singers, we mimic a style of theater that offers a distraction from daily life, not the reconstruction of daily life in Christ’s image. Above all we deceive ourselves that a “good time” of fellowship, of singing, of playing instruments, of bible studies, etc., can ever compete with brain-blasting spiritual face-to-face encounters with God through his spoken WORD. How can we possibly be satisfied with such “cheap religious thrills” when God wants us to enter his presence and fall on our faces to receive grace and peace “from him Who Was, and Is and Is To Come” Revelation 1:4, and “from Jesus Christ, who...loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood...to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen” Revelation 1:5-6. End Part III The stories in Part I surface a spiritual truth that’s anathema in many churches today: gospel singing is but an accompaniment of, not a substitute for, Gospel preaching. I’ve even heard one song that glories in “When God’s singers” come home. What about God’s preachers? Or God’s missionaries? Or God’s Bible School teachers? And so on. Are we to believe Heaven is complete only when the singers get there? And no one will have a voice to praise God but those who presently have one? That’s pure spiritual pride. Indeed, it’s a form of spiritual racism.
I have yet to find a person who loves the Gospel message but not Gospel music. But any number of people exist who love the music but not the message. They like the melodies inspired by God but not the God who inspires beautiful melodies. I knew such a man. It’s like skeptic Will Durant sitting in his hotel. He heard a church carillon chime a Christian hymn. It so emotionally moved him that he burst out, “Oh, God, how beautiful.” But when the music stopped, so did his emotional outburst. What was he saying? He could believe God existed, but only in beauty. Perhaps only when instrumental music played. Perhaps, like my friend, only when he heard gospel music sung. As if God will make exceptions for people who love the singing of God’s grace but not the message of Christ dying to forgive sinners. That’s an ongoing problem with unbelievers. If earth were Heaven on Earth, they could love God. Since earth isn’t Heaven on Earth, they don’t. Since the realities of life’s problems, hatreds and disasters challenge belief in a GOOD GOD, they choose not to believe in the Biblical God, particularly not in the Historical Jesus Christ. They adamantly refuse to see SIN as Satan’s intruding marauder in humanity: disrupting plans, shattering dreams, ruining lives—and leading everyone to the grave! They won’t consider Satan as God’s enemy and sin as our deliberate choice of enthroning SELF as a substitute for GOD. The point is: gospel singing can never force this truth on them. For that influence comes only through the Holy Spirit working in the taught and preached Word of God. Besides, the lies told by skeptics are outrageous denials of the truth that Jesus Christ lived among those cursed with pain, and relieved it; among the leprous, and cleansed them; among the immoral, and forgave them; walked unafraid of death and its ceremonial contamination into a death-room and TOUCHED the corpse to new life; and counting even his own separation from God a small price to forgive sinners all their pitiless sins against God. End Part II This series of blogs is based on Ezekiel 33:30-33. God’s comfort of the exiles in Babylon didn’t upgrade Ezekiel’s prophetic office. They listened as he preached but failed to change their spiritual perspectives.
Both mountain heights and atmospheric disturbances can increase this impact of a song or sermon. On our trip to San Jose for Debbie and Tony’s wedding, we reached the summit of a pass in Central California just as Steve Green’s tape reached the conclusion of a song. Since even Christian musicians can’t resist turning a witness into a production, his great voice, accompanied by full orchestra and complementary singers made our hearts SOAR so high we could have floated over the summit and down the valley Never before or since did geography and musical experience coalesce into such spiritual grace. But of ecstasy, understand, not of teaching. Of burgeoning emotion, not of correction. Unsettled meteorological conditions can even increase the effect of preaching. George Whitefield, a companion of the Wesley’s, often preached to thousands in outdoor venues. Instead of listening as Whitefield preached, Ben Franklin one night measured the area packed with people and determined that 30,000 could be in the crowd. While an interesting note of history, the preacher had evangelism in mind, not physical distance. Franklin proved the perfect example of humanistic wayside soil. He would study the impact a preacher had on people, but wouldn’t let Jesus impact him. Anyway, the Wesley’s and Whitefield held outdoor services for two reasons. One, no building could hold the crowds. Two, the established churches didn’t welcome the revival emphasis of Wesley’s music or Whitefield’s preaching. On one occasion he preached the wrath of God against unrepentant sinners. A storm gathered towards the close and continued building as he reached his climax. As his invitation flung verbal denunciations at sinners, eye-blinding lightning, followed by ear-splitting thunder, visibly shook the crowd, and people rushed forward to accept Christ. A person later wrote Whitefield for a copy of the sermon. Remembering the meteorological background that made it SO DRAMATIC, he wrote back that he would supply the sermon if she could supply the lightning and thunder. End Part I |
Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|