The Ministry of Song

The Ministry of Song

 

By Sara Stoner

God’s people have always been a singing people.  Song is a God-given release of what is in the soul and heart of the believer.  When the eyes of the heart can see what God has done, song is a natural response.  Singing can be an elixir to our own souls that lifts our spirits when we are down and raises them higher when we are up.  Words of the hymn writer can express our thoughts to God and about God more precisely than we would ever be able to think or express them, yet they become our words and our expressions when we sing with the spirit and the understanding.

      

Songs originated in the heavenly places.  God asked Job, “where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth … when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:6-7). This may be poetic language, but it speaks of all created beings bursting forth into praise to God for His marvelous works. As God unfolded His redemptive work in Israel and later to all mankind, the heavens were commanded to sing, and not only them, but also the mountains, the forest and every tree therein. The reason? “I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions and as a cloud, thy sins…Sing, o ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it” (Isa. 44:22).

      

Songs in the scriptures run the gamut of our earthly experience. Moses and the children of Israel sang to the LORD from the safe side of the Red Sea, “I will sing unto the LORD for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”  But at the end of their wilderness journey, God taught Moses the words of a song He was to teach to Israel for them to teach to their children perpetually; “Of the Rock that begat thee, thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee’’ (Deut. 32: 18).  It was a sad song of God forsaking His people, turning them over to their enemies, then recovering and avenging them.  God gave them this song so that they might not forget His loving kindness and their rebellion, His discipline and their restoration.  Many years later, when Israel had yet again forsaken Him, God spoke through the prophet Amos saying “I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentations” (Amos 8:3,10). Lamentations are song of deep grieving and bitterness of heart.  God would not and will not accept songs of those with wicked hands and deceitful hearts. He will turn them into lamentations.

      

David who composed many Psalms was committed to singing praise to God because of His familiarity with God. He knew what pleased the Lord and he was in accord with Him.  “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.  This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs” (Ps.69: 30-31).  Songs are most beneficial to us and are pleasing to God when we participate in them with understanding.  The praises we bring must flow out of a heart that has seen God and agrees with His ways.

      

Songs are a way of communicating with the Lord, and He with us.  Elihu reminded Job that it is God that gives songs in the night (Job 35:10). David in Psalm 42:8 said, “Yet the LORD will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” These are deep calling unto deep songs.  Many thoughts may come to you in the night, but God can speak to you the, by giving you a song of comfort and assurance.  He can even cause you to sing in a prison cell at midnight.

      

Believers in the new covenant have been given a new song to sing, new because of the redemptive work of Christ Jesus, and new because we have been made new creatures in Him with new hearts, new understanding and therefore, new expressions.  As the hymn writer said, “We love to sing of Christ our King and hail Him blessed Jesus”. Some current songs, which primarily focus on what we were in the flesh instead of who He is, what He has done for us, and what we are now in Him, actually rob God of His glory.  Neither do they stir up the soul with a longing for glory and the world to come.  John the beloved, who walked with Jesus in the flesh, wasn’t singing about his experiences when he beheld the Lamb seated on the throne.  He heard himself saying, “Blessing, and honor, and glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13).

      

Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are for the Church.  We teach one another and admonish one another by them. Singing with grace in our hearts, making melody in our hearts is pleasing and acceptable to the Lord.  This is an evidence of being filled with the Spirit. “Love loves to sing.  It is with the heart that melody is made.  For this inward music the Lord listens”.