MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE LORD

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE TO THE LORD

                During the Dark ages when Christianity had been mixed half and half with paganism, the sounds of joy were suppressed. Mournful chants took the place of exuberant praise as ascetic monks beat themselves with rods and whips, and crawled on stone floors until their knees were bloody and did many other acts of penance in order to purge the sin from their lives.

                Gregorian chant has a certain sad beauty to it as it rings through the high arched cathedrals of dead religion, but it is borne of man’s idea of holiness and not God’s.

                With the birth of the reformation, music began to move from the minor keys to the major keys and harmonies began to mimic the freedom that people felt as a result of their newfound freedom in Christ. Still to this day there are some churches and denominations that have held a somewhat modified sense of subdued worship, either by not allowing instruments, or limiting musical instruments , or eliminating what might be called a beat, or drums, or anything that would resemble singing, shouting, dancing in worship to God. But again this is man’s idea of holiness and not God’s.

                So, how can we know what kind of music God likes? Is there any sort of instruction concerning the kind of music and worship the Lord enjoys? Well… actually there is and our pastor brought these instructions to our attention last week. We are praying for revival in our church and one of the first things a congregation has to do is to move out of glum and mundane worship, beyond self-consciousness to God consciousness… out of conservatism and into exuberance. True worship cannot happen as long as people are bound up in themselves, or burdened with unforgiven sin, or otherwise liviing in the shadow of the cross instead of in the brilliant light of the resurrection.

                So Pastor Acres reviewed for us some of the Hebrews words in the Old Testament that accompanied our instructions for music as God wants it expressed in His people.

1.       TODAH … To extend the hands in thanksgiving

2.       YADAH… Worship with extended hands – to throw out the hands in joy to God

3.       HALAL… To be vigorously excited; to laud, boast, rave, to celebrate, to be enthusiastically foolish.  (Think of David as he led the procession to Jerusalem)

4.       ZAMAR…  To pluck strings of an instrument, to praise with song,

5.       BARAK… To bless, to declare God the origin of power… to be still

6.       TEHILLAH… Singing in the Spirit or singing of halals.

7.       SHABACH… To commend, address in a loud tone, to shout

                The Shout of praise is one of the ways of power through which God gives victory… and oh how hard it is for us to do any such thing since we usually remain more self-conscious than God conscious and so we build this sort of culture around our intimidation and we bury our nose in the hymn book and do what is “proper” in the eyes of men rather than the eyes of God.

                Today our traditions have stolen true worship from us. Even in Pentecostal churches the flagging embers of yesterday’s revivals need to be stirred up… with fresh fuel of the Holy Spirit igniting in us a kind of worship that moves beyond the self. People think they are honoring God with their subdued tones when in fact they are protecting their own egos.

                One of the seven words used for worship “BARAK” instructs us to be still before the Lord. Habakkuk gives voice to this silence of the solemn assembly saying: “But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before Him.” This instruction, of course, came after a tongue lashing by Habakkuk for worshiping idols. But in that same chapter he also gave us one of the great promises of a time yet future saying. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (See Habakkuk 2:20 and 2:14.)

                For many Christian groups God’s, instructions for worship would be scandalous. Even Pentecostal people find it hard to break the barrier of self to worship in unbridled passion and exuberance before the Lord. We perhaps do better than most, but we too have become more “proper” than we were in the days of revival.

                Here I am not advocating Christian rock. We don’t need to borrow the sounds of rebellion from the world. But we do need to sing music into which we can incorporate our full energies along with the other things that God calls for in worship. Psalms 150 says:

               

                “Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary’ praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His mighty acts; praise Him according to the abundance of His greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound; Praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with tambourine and dancing; praise with stringed instruments and flute. Praise Him with resounding cymbals; praise Him with loud cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise ye the LORD! Ps. 150:

Ps. 47:1 says: “O clap your hands all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.

                At the end of his sermon, our past or invited us to stand up and to shout praises to the Lord. It was oh so hard to do. We started out weak and tentative. It is very difficult to break beyond our own prideful barriers of self- containment to worship God’s way. But once we were able to raise our voices in combined shouts of praise to the Lord a very wonderful thing happened. The presence of God descended upon our congregation and it was so powerful and so wonderful that nobody wanted to leave. Long after the sermon ended most of the congregation just hung around worshiping the Lord with a sense of awe and wonder.

                Yes there is a time for solemn assembly as one of the seven instructions tells us to do in penitence to God. But the other six instructions call for exuberant praise of lifting of hands, of clapping our hands, of singing and shouting and dancing before the Lord. It calls for singing in the Spirit, even as Paul said in 1 Cor. 14:14, 15:

                “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my Mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then?  I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with my mind also; I shall sing with the spirit and I shall sing with the mind also. Well, this is an instruction that most of the church has ignored in our day, for indeed we have chosen to worship according to man’s preferences rather than God’s and there are some acts of worship that call for more humility than we are willing to endure.

                The church is shrinking worldwide. Even Satanism is growing faster than Christianity. The occult and idol worship, Islam and Atheism are all growing faster as the dark arts of Cabbalism overtake the world. In fact Cabbalism works hand in hand with science to paint a picture of a universe in which there needs to be no God. The things of science and archeology that point irrefutably to God, have become proof to them that there is no God.

                It is high time for the church to become alive again, to awaken from our stupor and tradition and to begin to operate in the Spirit in rather than in the mere conventions of men. We have rendered the Word of God powerless with our traditions and we cower in our hiding places as the kingdom of the antichrist overtakes this planet.

                For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.” 2 Cor. 10:3-6.

                You see, we have thought to take on the world with the methods and the plans of men and we are losing the battle because God’s sways are different from ours. He brought down the walls of Jericho with a shout and when He returns He will descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of a trumpet.” 1 Thess. 4:16. So maybe we need a little more of that God kind of worship to wake up our sleeping churches today. While some churches appear to be alive with a flurry of activity, they are using the methods and philosophies of men rather than the instructions of God. We need to return to the primitive kind of worship that once conquered the Promised Land.

                It was done by God’s prescription for worship… for worship is a way of life and not something we just do once a week… behind the four walls of tradition. Worship is the way we fight our battles. Worship is the way that we break the chains of doubt and fear. Worship is God’s way of inhabiting the praises of His people.