Fourth,
the lyrics of all songs offered to the Lord in His worship must be “the word of
Christ” (Col 3:16). They must either be
the perfect songs of the Psalter—every psalm, and every line of every psalm of
which ought to be sung in the church of God—or hymns that are God’s Word in the
same sense that proper preaching is the preaching of the Word.[1] Every uninspired hymn must accurately
represent the content of Scripture. Singing false doctrine is nothing less than
to lie to God, and to do so in worship that has access into heaven itself. That every word of every hymn offered to God
accurately represents the teachings of Scripture is no little matter. It is the difference between pleasing the
holy and reverend King of glory and misrepresenting His nature, blaspheming His
name, profaning His worship, and thus breaking the first four of the Ten
Commandments. It is the difference
between accurately representing the “honour of his name,” “mak[ing] his praise
glorious,” and so bringing a blessing from heaven (Ps 66:2), and dishonoring
His name or character, turning His praise into sacrilege, and bringing from
heaven Jehovah’s wrath and curse. Do you
offer God psalms and hymns that accurately represent who He is and so make His
praise glorious?
Classic Baptist hymn writers were
extremely careful to ground the statements of their hymns in Scripture. For example, Benjamin Wallin (1711-1782) in
his Evangelical Songs and Hymns of
1750 annotated every stanza and virtually every line with copious references to
Scripture, believing that “Care should be taken that they [the hymns] be
perfectly agreeable to the Holy Testaments” (pg. 47, Arnold, The English Hymn). He followed, in this method of annotation,
Baptist Joseph Stennett (1663-1713), who had acted similarly in his hymnal,
although not as profusely. The New Baptist Psalmist and Tune Book
edited by the famous Landmark Baptist J. R. Graves stated: “Particular attention has been paid to the doctrinal sentiments of the Hymns[.] . .
. In this collection there will be found no hymns that teach the doctrine of
baptismal remission or ritual efficacy, no praises to be sung to dead relatives
or friends, nor are children taught to pray to the angels, or to desire to be
angels. . . . What we sing in our worship should agree with the doctrine we
preach and profess” (pg. 3).
Furthermore,
while hymns with choruses are not wrong, as Psalm 136 has a refrain, the vast
majority of the psalms—like the vast majority of old hymns—have no chorus. The introduction of hymns with consistently
repeated refrains around the second half of the 19th century grew,
not out of a careful study of Scripture on worship, but out of a desire to make
songs that children would easily find attractive. These children’s songs then found their way
into the corporate worship of the whole church body:
The material that accomplished that purpose we call gospel
songs, sometimes “gospel hymns” . . . grew out of Sunday School music . . . a
new type of song . . . with a catchy, easily remembered melody, simple harmony
and rhythm, and always a refrain. It should not surprise us that when those
Sunday School children reached adulthood, they were ready listeners for more
songs with much the same musical characteristics[.] . . . preacher Dwight Moody
(1837–99) and singer Ira Sankey (1840–1908) popularized [such music for
adults]. (pgs. 111-112, Mr Moody and the
Evangelical Tradition, Timothy George.
New York, NY: T & T Clark,
2004)
Whenever singing a song with a regular refrain, extra
effort must be made to be sure that one is closely paying attention to,
wholeheartedly meaning, and offering to the Lord the words every time they are
sung.
What is more, since the psalms not only
glory in the Lord’s salvation (Ps 9:14; 13:5) but also regularly warn of hell
and judgment (Ps 9:17; 11:6; 55:15), and the imprecatory psalms prophesy of the
awful judgments which will fall upon the ungodly (Ps 69:22-28; 137:7-9), so
modern hymnals likewise must sing not only of heaven but also of hell and
judgment. A hymnal such as Asahel
Nettleton’s Village Hymns for Social
Worship does well to have extensive numbers of hymns not on heaven alone,
but also on judgment and the eternal damnation of the wicked. Hymns such as the following ought to be sung:
All ye who laugh and sport with death,
And say, there is no hell;
The gasp of your expiring breath
Will send you there to dwell.
When iron slumbers bind your flesh,
With strange surprise you’ll find
Immortal vigor spring afresh,
And tortures wake the mind!
Then you’ll confess, the frightful names
Of plagues, you scorn’d before,
No more shall look like idle dreams,
Like foolish tales no more.
Then shall ye curse that fatal day,
With flames upon your tongues,
When you exchang’d your souls away
For vanity and songs. (Village Hymns, #30)
When the unconverted heard the “new song” of the Psalter
their reaction was not enjoyment, but “fear” (Ps 40:3d), and only as a result
of such fear do they come to trust in the Lord (Ps 40:3e). Ungodly men are not converted because they
enjoy hearing Christian music—they are converted because of a miraculous Divine
work has been done in their hearts by the Sovereign God through the hearing of
the Word (Rom 10:17). If the
unregenerate are not afraid and convicted of their sin when they attend the
worship of the saints, but instead find a relish for it in their carnal hearts,
something is very wrong.
Finally, since the psalter has no special
section of dumbed-down psalms for children, little ones ought to be taught to
sing hymns that have the rich content that the youth in Israel sang in their
inspired songbook.
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