My subject was assigned, not chosen; but it suits me well, perhaps better than I suit the subject. We preach on Praying, on Giving, on The Lord's Supper, and we even preach on Preaching; but we seldom preach about the singing--although it is a highly scriptural line of teaching, and although in most places the song service might bear a little improvement! I only hope that the subject, neglected as it has been, may not lie outside the circle of your interest. That would make this assignment too difficult for the speaker.

      We may as well begin our study line with the two Pauline passages on the subject that are now classical: Eph. 5:18, 19 and Col. 3:16, 17--

      "Be not drunken, with wine, wherein is riot (or excess), but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody within your heart (or in your heart) to the Lord."

      "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God. And whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

      Plainly, it was never the will of God that the religious service should be a "riot," or a circus, or a disorderly pandemonium--though the "Rollers" and the "Jumpers," and the snake handlers may think so. [93] "God is not a God of confusion, but of peace."--"Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Cor. 14:33, 40). Neither the fleshly inspiration of wine nor any other excessive human stimulant by which unspiritual men may sometimes seem to "walk all over God's heaven," has any place in the worship service. Yet, on the other hand, it is not the will of God that our meetings should be too prim and precise, too formal and decorous, to allow the expression of our sacred emotions: "Be not drunken with wine--but be filled with the Spirit;--singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord"; adontes kai psallontes--singing and psalloing; "singing and plucking the strings so that they gently vibrate"; "singing and striking the chords in the heart." Full well have the older brethren proved in preaching and debate that the Bible "heart" is that which knows and wills and understands and feels; how then call we deny that feeling has its place and rightful use in worship? True, we are a sane, hard-headed, reasoning and decorous people; we are not of those religious groups that sometimes shout in church: but perhaps our song should be our shout! How else can we be glad in Jehovah, and rejoice with the righteous; and shout for joy, with all them that are upright in heart? (Ps. 32:11.) I speak not of noise as such, but of true emotion, of feeling that is rooted in understanding and capable of invoking holy feelings in another. If our songs are beautiful, esthetically beautiful in poetry and in music, well and good; it will help. But above all, let them be spiritually beautiful and beautifully true; true to scripture and true to the highest Christian [94] experience. Let them be sung from the heart, heartily, and they will reach the heart; yea, they will reach to the gates of heaven.

      It was David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, that gave us that great invocation to thorough heartfelt praise:

      "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." (Ps. 103:1.)

      David being a prophet, calls by inspiration upon the whole man ("all that is within me")--body, soul, and spirit, intellect, emotions, and will--to rise up in praise to God. And may we not well pray:

      "O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise" (Ps. 51:15).

      May we not well say of God, our Maker, who giveth songs in the night (Job 35:10):

      "He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay: and he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God" (Ps. 40:2, 3).

      "Through him then let us offer in a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of lips which make confession to his name" (Heb. 13:15).

      Let is never forget that we were made a heritage .  . . "to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ" (Eph. 1:12).

      "Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death that I may show forth all thy praise" (Ps. 9:13). If then our songs are in our months alone and not in our hearts, what good is that?

      It, may well be that the earliest worship offered [95] to God was offered up in words only, without a song--if indeed it was anything more than a simple bodily act without any words at all. For a humble bodily act expressing inner need and adoration--that is still the essence of worship. Who that first worshipper was, we do not know, whether Adam, Cain or Lamech; whether Abel, Seth, or Enosh--in those days "men began to call upon the name of the Lord" (Gen. 4:26). But we may be quite sure that the first spoken worship was in words only, without a song. Later came musical intonation and melody, for purposes of accent, emphasis, and ornamentation: and then still later came the pleasing ornamentation of harmony.

      One other thing out of that dim and misty past seems very certain; that is that the earliest worship in song was only in song, without any instrumental accompaniment whatsoever. We know that instrumental accompaniment was introduced into the Jewish church in the days of David (2 Chron. 29:25), and into the so-called Christian church of this dispensation by the Roman pontiffs of the long ago. But to this day the human voice remains the greatest "musical instrument"--next in order being those instruments that most nearly imitate the voice in gamut and quality, say the violin. This is, of course, because the human voice is a living thing. Of all instruments it lies the nearest to our feelings. And when those feelings are high and holy feelings, the voice may indeed rise to great and holy heights. For it is not the words alone, but this ability to express for ourselves, and to arouse in others, the deepest emotions that gives to music and to song its peculiar [96] power. We know the devils music has this power, for evil; so too has ours, for good. If then--I say it again--if then the hymns are in our mouths alone, and not in our souls, what good is that? What power can they possibly have for good?

      But if, as we have said, the voice is the greatest musical instrument, it follows that the finest musical aggregation in the world is the highly trained group of voices known as the a capella choir or chorus--the symphony orchestra not excepted. As much as the highly ritualistic Roman church makes of the organ, and as much as the priest leans upon it for cues and pitch in the masses, yet it is their a capella choirs--the Sistine or Vatican--that are still sent out into the world to advertise the glory and the splendor of their hierarchy; and--if I am correctly informed by the Catholics--it is their a capella choirs that sing in the presence of the pontiff. This, I think, is a clear admission that the trained unaccompanied group is the finest musical aggregation known to man. Evidently the Russian church (Greek Orthodox) takes the same view of it.

      And, if you ask about the greatest voice in the world--whose voice is that? I answer you, That greatest voice is yours! For you, it is your own--because it is your own. Always near, always at hand, always ready, immediately available for teaching and admonishing your brethren, and for lifting up your heart to God in prayer, in praise, in worship, and in holy aspiration. It requires no stringing and no tuning. It lies nearer to you than breathing, closer than hands and feet. You will never have another in this world, nor another's. It is your own peculiar [97] gift from God, that you may give it back to Him--even as all our talents may be suitably offered to our Maker.

      During the recent war it was customary, as you know, to open conventions, and all large public gatherings, with the singing of the national anthem, the "Star Spangled Banner." And when the national convention of the deaf and dumb was held in the crystal ballroom of the Brown hotel here, the sessions were opened daily with the "singing" of the "Star Spangled Banner." It thrilled me then to learn that the dumb could sing, and sing together, in time if not in tune. Surely, surely, if the deaf and dumb can sing with "signs," we ought to be glad that we can sing with songs. Whether we must s-i-g-n our songs or whether we may s-i-n-g our songs, let us

      After all, among all the creatures that inhabit the earth, it is man alone that call sing, as it is man alone that can smile. Birds may give out in a pleasing whistle, and dogs may sometimes seem to smile; but to really sing, and truly smile--these must come from the mind and heart within; these are the peculiar gifts and graces of God to men.

      We ought indeed to sing more alone; speaking to ourselves and to God. As James exhorts us: [98]

      But we ought to sing much more together. After all, it is almost the only act of worship that we do together Unless it be an occasional scripture portion read responsively, it is almost our only unison act. Some one leads the prayer, and some one preaches the sermon. One by one we break the bread; one by one we drink the cup, and one by one we lay by of our earthly goods; but when we sing we sing together. It is a good thing, a pleasant thing, and a unifying thing to do: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to sing together in harmony! I have seen brethren by the hundreds sing happily together when they would hardly think of worshipping together in any other act.

      But I come now to speak of the object of our worship, and the center of our assembly. That proper object of our worship is God--God, the Father, God, the Son; and that only center is the Lord Jesus Christ, our adorable Redeemer. One may go to the concert, the secular concert, and there he finds that the singer is the center of interest. The accompanist may have a moment of recognition, and a few may even think of the gifted writers of the words and music; but the singer is the center, and the chief object of praise.

      One may go to hear the great symphony orchestra, and there the conductor is the center. Bruno Walther, Toscanini the restrained, or Stokowsky who conducts with his whole body--whoever it may be--all eyes are upon the conductor. A few will think of the men, [99] now gone, who Composed the beautiful music; of Schubert the sorrowful, who wished that he might fall asleep and waken never more; of Mozart the "master melodist" who died so young; of Beethoven the mighty master, or of Wagner the wizard of orchestration. But when the finale is done, and the curtain has fallen, and the music critics rush to their typewriters to knock out their little piece by the deadline for the morning papers, it is the conductor chiefly that they praise. And that is fair enough.

      But in the church--there Jesus Christ is the center. There in the sacred worship service no one may intrude himself--not even the leader of the songs, with his bad-taste long baton. As we realize more and more that Jesus Christ is central we leaders will obtrude ourselves less and less that we may exalt Christ more and more. I have been asked in many places about choruses and special groups; and I have always answered, "That is a work that calls for the humblest and most spiritual direction." Where we have that, well and good; where we have men in charge who know Who God is, who have themselves been humbled before Him, who have "seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"; where we have such men (and we do have some), there special groups may greatly glorify the Lord. Otherwise it may well become a snare.

      But one thing more. Whenever we realize this, that God the Father, God the Son, are central in our worship--whenever we become aware of this, we eliminate at one fell swoop the low and the common, the cheap and the trashy, in the poetry of our worship songs, as well as the wretched jazz and jive, the [100] ragtime, the syncopated swing rhythm, and the jangling dissonances--sure signs of our sordid age--that have come in like a plague upon some of the churches, especially in the Southland. Have we actually concluded that we must teach our young people in church to dance, or at least that we must teach them the dance rhythm in our churches? Do we think that perhaps we can compete with the theater and the jazz joints where, after all they do these things so much better? Have we forgotten Who God is, the lofty object of our praises, and the Lord Jesus Christ, God's exalted Son, the center of all our worship? Not even in the court of earthly potentates may one approach the throne without days and weeks of careful training: how then shall we enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum, to approach the spotless throne or the universe except with words that are noble and suitable, and with music that is reverent and spiritual?

      It is, of course, not every spiritual song that is addressed to God. Sometimes we speak "one to another" by way of testimony, instruction, admonition, and invitation: but always, even when we speak "one to another," it is to be "with grace in our hearts unto God." The divine Being is ever before our minds--even as we are to do all, whatsoever we do in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus. From Him are all our gifts whatever they may be; and it is suitable that all our talents should be returned to Him in praise! [101]

[LM 93-101]