Bible students recognize and appreciate the fact that God has commanded His people to worship Him with music. While the Old Testament is no longer our source of authority for things of a religious nature, we can turn there to establish that from ancient times, God's people have praised Him with song.
Consider Psalm 30:4, where David wrote, "Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones, and give thanks to His holy name." If we turn to 2 Chronicles 29, we find that under Moses' Law, Jehovah, through His prophets, commanded Israel to accompany their songs with instruments of music. As they offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar in the temple, the assembly worshipped, the singers sang in the worship, and the trumpeters sounded. Let's read verses 25-28, "He then stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, with harps, and with lyres, according to the command of David and of Gad the King's seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for the command was from the Lord through His prophets. And the Levites stood with the musical instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. Then Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord also began with the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David, king of Israel. While the whole assembly worshipped, the singers also sang and the trumpets sounded; all this continued until the burnt offering was finished."
Perhaps the best-known Old-Testament passage that relates to worshipping God with music is Psalm 150. It simply says, "Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty expanse. Praise Him for His mighty deeds; praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals; praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord Praise the Lord!"
When we move into the New Testament, we find that God's people are still commanded to worship Him with music. However, Christians are commanded to offer God vocal music, as Ephesians 5:19 tells us, "Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." When faithful churches of Christ worship, that is just exactly what they do--sing as authorized by God in the New Testament.
According to Ephesians 5:19, the heart is the instrument used to make melody to God. Man's heart involves his ability to think, reason, understand, and believe, as well as his ability to trust, hope, love, and rejoice. When we sing praises to God and accompany those praises with the instrument God ordained for His church's worship, our service to Him is acceptable. The human heart is an instrument that everyone possesses. The Lord has provided a way for every one of his children to make his journey to heaven by singing and striking the strings of his own heart. When a Christian does that, he worships God in the way that God desires, at least as far as music is concerned.
There is an aspect of our singing in worship that needs to be addressed and properly understood.
It is true that when we sing, we are "speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Ephesians 5:19) and that we are "teaching and admonishing one another" (Colossians 3:16). But let us not forget that when we sing together in our worship, first and foremost we are singing to the Lord. Colossians 3:16 concludes with "Singing and making melody with thankfulness in your hearts to God." And Ephesians 5:19 concludes with "Singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord." God wants us to give Him our full devotion and allegiance. He wants us to sing of Him and to Him. He doesn't judge the singing the same way we do. We tend to judge it based on how it sounds to us, whether we can carry a tune or not. God judges our singing based on whether it is whole-hearted and offered as an act of homage and reverence to Him. Indeed, I believe that our singing in worship is a sacrifice to Him, the savor of which rises to the heavens. Hebrews 13:15 tells us, "Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name."
One of the basic ideas behind the word praise is to cause to shine. Praise means to laud, to extol, to commend. When we sing praises describing God's glory, that glory will shine.
Is it possible for worshippers to sing with enthusiasm? Yes, of course it is. Is it possible that some won't think of the meaning of the words but just recite them by memory? Certainly. Is it possible that some will actually be singing to impress those nearest to them with their beautiful voices? I suppose so. But when we sing with the right attitude, with God as our focus, it is a wonderful and joyously uplifting thing. And one of the really neat things about this aspect of worship as God has set it up is that even if others aren't focused, I can be!
Let's bring this short article on singing as worship to a close with Psalm 95:1-7a. "O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for it was He who made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand." Beautiful, isn't it.
Brother Litmer has commented on a subject that is again causing problems. Some say that our singing isn't spiritual enough, and they have reintroduced the subject of using instrumental music in the worship services. They suggest that we should do more to reach out to mainstream Christianity. We can accomplish this by compromising and letting go of some of our traditions, such as not using instruments in worship services.
Sadly, many of our brethren are caving in to the demands of those who are not content to follow God's pattern for music in worship. They seem to have forgotten that vocal music in worship is not a tradition; God commanded it! Does God have the authority to tell us how to worship Him with music? All NINE of the New-Testament passages that discuss this subject use some form of the word SING. Reaching back to the Old Testament won't change the truth; nor will the demands of the people. The only worship service that pleases God is the one that is according to His commands. Surely we haven't forgotten who we come to please and to worship-GOD. (KMG)