Chester

This is the only "modern" song that came to mind as I thought about songs that might recount specific salvation events in History. Tune and words written by American William Billings, Chester is very nationalistic, but it does thank God for his blessing on the nation, and His deliverance from their (relatively) Godless enemy. I like it.

"Let tyrants shake their iron rod,

And slavery clank her galling chains,

We fear them not, we trust in God,

New England's God forever reigns.

Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton too,

With Prescot and Cornwallis joined,

Together plot our overthrow,

In one infernal league combined.

When God inspired us for the fight,

Their ranks were broke, their lines were forced,

Their ships were shattered in our sight,

Or swiftly driven from our coast.

The foe comes on with haughty stride;

Our troops advance with martial noise,

Their veterans flee before our youth,

And Generals yield to beardless boys.

What grateful offering shall we bring?

What shall we render to the Lord?

Loud halleluiahs let us us sing,

And praise his name on every chord!"

After writing it all out, I like it even more! It reminds a lot of of Exodus 15, and of Deborah and Barak's song in Judges 5. Could we sing this in church today? I'm not sure...but I like it!

Here is a recording of the song with a good introduction. Not the best choir in the world, but not bad for high-schoolers.

Moses' Song

Moses' song, recorded in Exodus 15, is the first major song recorded in the Bible. Moses leads the people of Israel in singing this song after they are delivered from Egypt and the Egyptian army is drowned in the Red Sea.

It is a long song (18 verses in our Bibles) and is basically a song rejoicing in God's utter destruction of the evil Egyptians. It can be roughly outlined like this:

I. I will sing to YAWHEH for He has delivered me (1-3)

II. Vivid description of judgment on the Egyptians (4-12)

III. The Nations fear the LORD (13-18)

This song focuses most on points 2 and 4 from my earlier post ("mighty acts of salvation recorded," and "His acts of judgment are rejoiced in") which I believe are the weakest areas in our worship music today. What if people today wrote songs recounting how God has blessed the Church and punished/judged the forces of evil? It is obviously a little easier for Israel in this case since the were the people of God, as a nation, they were all in one location, and God worked very directly in history to save them from the Egyptians. In fact, this event is mentioned in many more songs thoughout the Bible, including Psalms 78, 81, 105, 106, 114, and 135. I have a hard time thinking of how we could write songs for worship today that reference specific salvation events in "modern" history (partly because the Church is so divided...), but I'm sure it is possible.

How many songs do we sing that have lines like these?

"The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host he cast into the sea, and his chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them: they went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O LORD, glories in power, your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fury; it consumes them like stubble."

This song is about salvation for the people of God, but the other side of that is God's terrible judgment on His enemies. We just don't sing this kind of stuff unless we sing the songs of the Bible! The only way we will be able to write songs like the ones God has given us is if we raise up a generation saturated in these songs from the Bible. Maybe we can only sing slightly odd versions of these songs (I'm for the chant version), but I think that it is most important that we learn these words, these songs that God has given us, and use them as a pattern as we write worship songs for today.

Why Every Christian Should Sing

I'm still working through Jones' collection of essays (Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today), and I just ran into another portion I thought was excellent and very applicable to the Church today. I would like to post a few quotes from his essay "Why Every Christian Should Sing."

Frequently I encounter men and women who say that they "do not sing." There are many reasons for their lack of vocal participation, but I have yet to hear one from anyone with working vocal folds that would be an adequate excuse before God. Fear is the least-cited but generally all-inclusive reason. It takes many forms: fear of error or embarrassment, fear of what others think, fear of losing control, fear of criticism, fear of offending others. Such self-conscious behavior may be appropriate to certain situations, or aspects of our person, but it has little place in the corporate worship of the Almighty God. God never said, "If you feel good enough about yourself, sing to me," or "As long as you have a peer-approved voice, praise me in song." According to Scripture, the praise of God is not an optional activity.

Most of the rest of the essay contains examples of singing saints in the Bible, specific commands to sing (mostly from Psalms and Isaiah), examples of heavenly beings singing, and of Jesus himself singing.
Jones ends the essay with a summary list of reasons we should sing:

We should sing because of God's attributes and acts in creation and redemption. We should sing because this was the exemplary response of biblical saints. We should sing because God has commanded us to do so. We should sing because it is a Christian and heavenly activity of eternal duration and significance.
If we do not sing, we disobey God and miss out on the rich blessings derived from this activity.

Paul S. Jones on the Mass

I have been reading Paul Jones' book Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today which was recommended to me by Mark Reagan. I am enjoying it very much so far! I ran across a paragraph on the Mass as way to organize worship, and I found it very refreshing after several discussions about worship styles and organizational techniques in my Music and Christian Faith class.

The Mass is a marvelous structure for organized worship--it is liturgy at its finest, imbued with Scripture, carefully honed and internationally utilized for centuries. It begins with acknowledgment of our need for God's mercy, moves into praise and thanksgiving, declares our faith, reminds us of God's holiness and the significance of the one who speaks in his Name, and finally confirms the finished work of Christ while recalling our daily need of him. We should not fear the Mass as liturgy but feel the liberty to employ it or elements of it to aid our gathered worship.

Singing as a Part of the Christian Life

(This was a response to a post by another student that claimed that Christians don't need to sing, but can just praise God is whatever way they feel comfortable with.)

I have been reading the Psalms a lot for the past two or three years and I think it can at least be said that God wants us to sing to Him. A brief search on the word "sing" in the Psalms came up with around 26 commands/encouragements to sing to Him. We can allegorize this and apply this to other ways of praising God, but don't think we should ignore the simple meaning of the text. If it says to sing to God that many times, He probably means it!

We can praise the Lord in many other ways, but I think that singing His praises should receive special attention and time. We can praise Him in other ways besides singing (the Psalms are filled with exhortations to praise Him as well), but with this many imperatives, I think we can safely say singing is something that pleases God, and he expects it from His people. I believe that it should be part of the Christian life.

There are at least 26 exhortations to sing to God in the Psalms, but there are as many as 50 places in the Psalms where is says something to the effect of "I will sing to God." So everyone should sing to God because He commands it. Just because that is true doesn't mean you alone are responsible to make that happen. We don't have to "judge" everyone that isn't fulfilling that responsibility. We are responsible for ourselves and those God has put under our care. We can encourage others to sing, and train them to do it better, and try to show them that God loves it when we sing to Him, but we start with ourselves. "I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me." Psalm 13:6.