Greetings to you, my friend. We are glad that from the many programs available to you right now, you have chosen ours. We pray sincerely you will be blessed by our study of the word of God together. We're in Search of the Lord's way to become and be a Christian, and, in this lesson we're seeking the Lord's way to worship.
Thank you, thank you, friend; you have done us the courtesy of inviting us into your home today to study the word of God. And we love you for it. You may not know it, so let me tell you. Our programs are seen and heard around the world by radio, television, satellite and the internet. And we are on this station due to the generosity of some members of some churches of Christ in the broadcast area of this station. Let me explain, too, that a church is a "church of Christ" as far as, but no farther than possesses the qualities and characteristics of the church that you read about in your New Testament.
Saturday, January 26th, there appeared a front-page news-story in the "Religion" section of the Oklahoman. That is Oklahoma's largest newspaper that was of interest to members of churches of Christ everywhere, as well as to many others. It was an announcement that Oklahoma City's third largest church of Christ was adding instrumental music to their worship the next day. Well, you can't imagine the enquiries we have had about that. Ok, maybe you can. Anyway, that is the reason we interrupted our announced line-up of programs for this study today, titled, No Drums, Guitars and Keyboards.
If you think you might want a free CD, an audio cassette tape or a printed copy of it; please mail your request to: In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. By e-mail our address is searchtv@searchtv.org. You can access it, if you like-- audio, video or transcript at searchtv.org. Or you may use our toll-free telephone number; and that number is 1-800-321-8633. Just ask for the message about church music and we will know the one you have reference to. Now, Ken Helterbrand's going to lead the Edmond, Oklahoma church of Christ in a worshipful hymn; and then I'll be back and we'll read God's word and pray together.
Our Bible reading today is from the fifth chapter of the book of Ephesians. We will begin reading at verse 15. “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.” We read through verse 21. Now let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for the privilege of bowing before You in prayer and offering the sentiments of our heart to you so that You may hear us and know our will and know of our desire to serve You and to worship You properly. We pray Your blessings upon this message today that it will find a place in the hearts of all who are searching for the way that we ought to worship You in Spirit and in Truth. In the lovely name of Jesus, we offer this prayer. Amen.
I suppose every one has some measure of appreciation for music. Some prefer one kind and some another. Many of the youth today of America are aroused by rock and rap music; and still others among them prefer hip-hop or something else. Others flatly are turned off by either of those. However, the music we offer to God in worship of Him should not be determined by our personal preference. Neither should it be decided by the music of the unconverted world around us. It should be a sincere desire of the child of God to offer to God in our worship of God what God says pleases Him. You see, God is the object of Christian worship.
Perhaps then, we need to talk briefly about worship, what it is. It has been defined in various ways, but briefly stated "worship is drawing near to God." It is the spirit of man reaching upward to the Father of spirits. It's the expression of love and devotion and adoration and submission to deity. The word comes from the Old English "worth-ship" and conveys the thought of kissing the hand, and paying homage to the worshiped. I mean by that, that it emanates from the heart of man and is rendered to God. Christian worship is not a "celebration." Oh, I know we often hear it called that-- even from the pulpit sometimes, but it is not that. The word "worship" appears 108 times in the Bible. "Celebration" never appears, not even once in the same Word.
The classical statement on worship is given by none other than the Son of God, Himself in John 4:24. He told the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well that "God is Spirit: and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." So true worship (which certainly implies the reality of false or worthless worship) is a spiritual offering to God as an expression of devotion to Him. And it is done in conformity to His will, not our likes.
It is perverted and vain (proven to be worthless) when it turns inwardly and becomes self-centered and self-pleasing and self-praising, or man-centered and men-pleasing and men-praising. American religion in recent year has "changed" worship. We have seen worship degenerate very swiftly into mere sensual entertainment; and it is designed in that way to please men and it is used by some churches to draw the crowds. It didn't always, but often did come in one giant leap over great resistance and tumultuous controversy and resulting in bitter division. Other times it was so leisure and gradual, slow that few people even noticed or objected. And it slipped into the church wearing the garment of "successful ministry."
So the true worshiper of whom Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman sacrifices his personal preferences in order to offer to God what God prefers. And the only way we can know what God prefers is from what He has spoken in His word. There is no man or group of men who can speak for God apart from His word. The New Testament is the book for Christianity. If a person wanted to follow Jesus in life, in faith, in salvation, in morals, in personal character, in worship, and all that life consists of, where would he go to find his teaching and his guidance? If not in the New Testament, I don't know where he would go. And if the New Testament isn't intended to be used as a guide for people of any generation to do that, who choose to follow Christ and be His disciples, well, I just don't know what use it is. And if a church wants to be a church of Christ like the one you read about in the New Testament, it must be guided and governed by that document. It must fashion itself, its faith, its teaching, its organization, its ministry, and yes, its worship; well, it must fashion all that it is so vitally to Christianity by the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in His word. You see the teachings of those inspired writers were not merely a set of expediencies for first century situations or mere human traditions. They are the inspired word of God for all time to come. So what does the New Testament say about music in Christian worship? Let’s see!
Let's begin by examining our text, Ephesians 5:18, 19: "And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess." That is the King James Version. Other translations say, "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery." And that is the Revised Standard Version. "Be not drunk with wine, in which is debauchery." That is the McCord translation. There was in Ephesus at the time that this epistle was written, a cult of the Greek god, Bacchus, the god of wine, who believed that the way that the spirit of Bacchus indwelt and controlled their bodies was by drinking wine. Thus, they attributed all of the atrocious crimes and evil deeds that they did and said in their drunken condition to the inspiration of their god. And from their behavior while under the influence of the spirit of Bacchus (and those beverages, if you think about it, are still called spirits), we get our word "debauchery." So in spite of the fact that we might have always thought and taught that Paul was addressing individual disciples about their personal lifestyle in this passage, he's actually writing to the church as a body. The message was to the congregation of the disciples of the Lord in Ephesus, some (perhaps all) of them had once been worshipers of Bacchus. In the worship of their pagan god, they freely used mechanical music of the day. Now that they are Christians, their worship is to be different. In what we know as verse 19, the Holy Spirit, by the pen of Paul writes of their musical offering in worship. He says, "Speaking to yourselves (or addressing one another) in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." He associates the mouth with the praises sung. This is seen again in Hebrews 13:15, which says, "By Him (that is Christ) therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name."
Ephesians 5:19 continues saying, "Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." The word for "singing" there means just that--"singing." But the word for "making melody" literally means "to pluck, to twang or to touch," like plucking or twanging the strings of a harp. However, the Holy Spirit tells us the instrument that is to be plucked or twanged or touched in this instance; He tells us what it is. He says it is the heart of the worshiper. "Singing and making melody with your heart (or in your heart) to the Lord." So, we sing with the lips and we accompany that with the melody we make in or with our hearts. Our melody we make in the heart is spoken by the lips. The melody comes from the heart of a living person in a living relationship with God, not from what in 1 Corinthians 14:7 Paul calls a "lifeless" flute or harp. And we can understand this verse if we visualize the accompaniment of our singing by plucking the strings of a harp, only instead of the harp, we are plucking the strings of the heart to accompany the sounds of our voices. And that is what the Bible is teaching in that verse.
With reference to an assembly of the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding" (1Corinthians. 14:15). The worshiper's praises are to come from the heart, sincerely, and communicate something understandable. This agrees with the Holy Spirit's instructions in Colossians 3:16 and 17. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And, (please notice now this verse, 17): whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."
My friend, it is a simple matter of fact-- or truth, that in every verse of the New Testament which mentions the music of early Christians it is vocal. And, it is clearly a matter of reality-- truth if you please, that there is no evidence either in the inspired Scriptures or even in church history that Christians employed a mechanical instrument of music in their worship of God for the first 800 to 1,000 years of Christianity.
What we have learned today can be summarized by saying that we in churches of Christ do not have mechanical instruments of music in our worship-- not because of "our tradition," but because we strongly believe it lacks God's approval. We also believe that to introduce into our worship of God something which does not have the approval of God constitutes an act of disobedience. And, willful disobedience to God renders worship of Him vain.
Jesus, our loving Savior, spoke of vain worship. He said of some people in His day, "These people draw near to me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:18, 19-- 8 and 9 I should say). When in such passages as our text in Colossians 3:16, God specifically says "singing," He excludes instrumental music. A specific command is always exclusive. It eliminates everything of like order. A generic command is permissive. It permits such things as are necessary carrying out the command. But every time there is a mention of music in the New Testament, it is always specific. Without fail it is "sing." So, it is not a "break from church of Christ tradition" as it is said by those who decide to add drums, guitars and keyboards to the worship of God; it's a break with biblical tradition. The Holy Spirit exhorts Christians to "stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by epistle" (2 Thessalonians chapter
2, and verse 15). Now, let’s go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are thankful to You for the teaching that You give us in your word about how to worship You. Now give us the heart, we pray You, to do your express will. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
I haven’t had the time today-- or the disposition-- to argue all the objections and criticisms to what I have said. And there are some, of course there are! I am not trying to defend the position; I am not trying to score any debate points or win any arguments. I told you what we in most churches of Christ sincerely believe to be taught in the word of God; having previously read the arguments to the contrary and consider them unconvincing, therefore invalid. And I pray your thoughtful and prayerful consideration of them as well.
Are you a Christian, my friend? If not, my heart's desire and prayer to God for you is that you come to Christ promptly. Confess Christ Jesus and put Him on in baptism that you may live for Him and with Him here in this world, and then go to be with Him on the other side of the grave. He wanted so much to see you saved from your sins, redeemed, and reconciled to God the Father that He died the shameful and agonizing death on the cross to make it possible for you to go to heaven. May God give you the courage to accept His will and His way right now?
Every biblical mention of Christian music is vocal. Biblical scholarship and historians are agreed on that. But, you don't have to be a scholar or an historian to know that; just read it in your Bible, and go to the "Religion" section of your public library for your church history books and read it for yourself. Churches of Christ are trying as best we can with the help of God, to reproduce Christianity in all of its essential features in the lives of people in our own generation. Christianity was such a meaningful thing in its pure form in the New Testament that millions of people rallied to become disciples of the Lord, knowing when they did so, they were subjecting themselves to persecution, desertion by family and rejection by society and all of that, but they wanted to be Christians. And the Lord's way was something, not only to die for, but to live for, and we believe if we can get those thoughts and those desirable qualities and characteristics back into Christianity nowadays, it will be as meaningful to us as it was to them. We're simply trying to get back to the Bible, back to the Bible way of living, back to the Bible way of salvation, back to the Bible way of worship. Back to the Bible way for Christianity!
Now, there are churches who are not even attempting to be or to do any of that. And some reason that it is impossible. Others say it's impractical and undesirable, so to them, the question of worship of God is not important-- to use their words-- it is "not a salvation issue." It is with us. To us it is not only desirable, but practical and entirely possible; therefore, we would like to think you can see our worthy and noble purpose and agree with us.
And, if you would like a printed copy or an audio cassette tape of today's program, "No Drums, Guitars or Keyboards," you may have it by writing us or calling us for it. Our address is In Search of the Lord’s Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. Now we plan to be back next week. And we would hope that you would be back with us also; and we would like you to be inviting others to be with us also. Maybe some of your friends would profit from our studies as well as having you. God bless you now. We love you.
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