2. Music In Church? Psalm 32:2

Text:  “Praise the Lord with harp: sing unto Him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.  Sing unto Him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.”

                                                                                                                 Psalm 32:2-3.

Good morning, musical singing Christian!  Your heart is singing so much at each remembrance of Christ’s Salvation of your sinful soul that you just can’t help but open your mouth and sing His praises!  You cannot wait to get into fellowship with others of ‘…like precious faith…’ to sing and make music unto the Living Lord God!  You go about your day with a song in your heart, because you remember how graciously the Lord God has dealt with you in saving your never-dying soul.  You do well, beloved Christian, you do very well.  Keep right on singing and making sacred music unto the Lord God - for His Word has given us a mandate for doing so.  Hallelujah!

“And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: may shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”  (Psalm 40:3)

Over the centuries since the birth of Christ’s Church on the Day of Pentecost, there has been much debate over whether or not to have music included in church services.  I have no idea how this type of debate commences, but one thing I do know: if the Lord had not wanted ‘His people’ to sing during their meetings, why then did He Himself engage in the practice?  We are called to be Christ-like - let’s continue trying to do things the way He did.  Amen?

“And when they (the Lord Jesus and His disciples) had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.”  (Matthew 26:30) (Mark 14:26)

When Hell-deserving sinners such as you and I are redeemed by the Blood of Christ the Lamb, we really have something to sing about, Eternally! 

All Sin is Paid For: Our vile sins - both our sin-nature inherited from our fallen progenitors, Adam and Eve, and the sins we have committed, commit daily, and will commit, are all covered by the Redemptive Blood of Christ Jesus shed for us on Calvary’s Cross.  The sin-question, for the genuine born again Christian believer, has been forever dealt with at that terrible Place called Golgotha - Jesus paid it ALL!  Hallelujah!  Does this Bible fact not make your heart want to SING?  Glory to the Lamb!  All praise unto Him Who was worthy to suffer and die to redeem our souls!

Verse 2.  “Blessed (blessed with multiple blessings) is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.  Note the three words so often used to denote our disobedience: transgression, sin, and iniquity,  they are the three-headed dog at the gates of Hell, but our glorious Lord has silenced his barkings forever against His own believing ones.  This trinity of sin is overcome by the Trinity of Heaven.

“…And in whose spirit there is no guile.  Free from guilt, free from guile.  Those who are justified from fault are sanctified from falsehood.  A liar is not a forgiven soul.  Treachery, double-dealing, chicanery, dissimulation, are lineaments of the Devil’s children, but he who is washed from sin is truthful, honest, simple, and childlike.”  (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 156-157)

Notice that what brother Spurgeon is teaching here is NOT some form of the heresy of ‘Entire Sanctification’, or sinless perfection in our state!  As honest regenerate, Bible-believing Christians - we are truthful enough to know and openly proclaim that we sin every day!  We are born sinners, and shall continue to be sinners until the day we die - or the Lord appears to change these vile bodies of sin and grant us glorified bodies of perfect sinlessness. 

However, as such true believers, we also know the impossibility of trying to hide our sins from our Holy Lord God.  No.  We confess our sins, and He is true to His Word and forgives us our sins, and cleanses us from all newly committed iniquity!  Hallelujah!  And some would dare say we have nothing to sing about?  Glory to God, the Lord will not impute (put to our account) sin unto His elect and redeemed people!

This truth does not make us SINLESS - but it should make us SIN LESS DAILY!

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us.”     (1 John 1:8-10)

Full Pardon:  “When once pardon is realised, the believer has courage to be truthful before God: he can afford to have done with guile in the spirit.  Who would not declare all his debts when they are certain to be discharged by another?  Who would not declare his malady when sure of a cure?  True faith knows not only that ’guile’ before God is impossible, but also that it is no longer necessary.  The believer has nothing to conceal: he sees himself as before God, stripped and laid open, and bare; and if he has learned to see himself as he is, so also has he learned to see God as He reveals Himself.”  (J.W. Reeve, M.A., 1860, in ’Lectures on the Thirty-Second Psalm’)

Now tell me, musical singing Christian - is not your making music and singing unto the Lord God completely justified by this remembrance of His Sovereign grace?  Sing!

Thought:  “It is the false heart only that finds the doors of mercy shut.”  (William Gurnall 1617-1679)  Sing unto the Lord the new song He has given us - those who have nothing to sing about may hold their peace.  Hallelujah! To the Lamb!