Psalms 47:6-7 - Homiletics

The faculty and duty of praise.

"Sing praises." Every command of God implies power to obey. True, God often tells us to do what we have no power of ourselves to do; but then he gives power. When Jesus bade the lame Walk, the blind see, the paralytic to take up the bed he lay on, and the very dead to come out of the grave, power went with his word. On the other hand, every faculty or power with which God has endowed us implies some duty in which we are to glorify him. Thus the faculty of praising God in song, and the duty of singing praises with understanding, imply one another.

I. THE FACULTY OF PRAISING GOD IN SONG . God might have given speech without song; all the whole world of sound without music. Not a few persons whose sense of hearing is quick and perfect, have no ear for music; they perceive neither melody nor harmony. For them, therefore, it is neither a pleasure nor a duty to sing praises. What is the case with some might have been with all. Music would then have had no existence in our world or in our conceptions. Further, if God had given no more than the ordinary average musical faculty, the wonder and power of music would have remained comparatively unknown. Multitudes can enjoy music, and play or sing, who never could compose a tune. A chosen few must be endowed with that special gift which we call "genius," making them as it were God's prophets to unfold the secret treasure of music he has stored up in nature, above all, in the human voice. Manifestly it was God's purpose in this to give delight. Music furnishes one of the most exquisite, elevating, unwearying pleasures of which our nature is capable. But it does much more. Song and music are a language distinct from speech—the language of feeling. This language supplies the means by which multitudes may express their thoughts as well as their feelings as with one voice. Let a thousand people speak at once; all thought and feeling are drowned in hubbub. But let them sing together in perfect time and tune; both thought and feeling are raised to a pitch of energy else inconceivable.

II. THE DUTY . "Sing ye praises." This duty has an inner spirit as well as an outer embodiment. There is, after all, no melody like "melody in your heart" ( Ephesians 5:19 ). In the service of God's Church, music without devotion, a lovely sound void of heartfelt meaning, is not praise, but profanation. Better omit singing from our service altogether, than have the finest music to the praise and glory, not of God, but of the performers. But when the spirit of praise, the heart and soul of worship, inspires our song, can we be too careful in perfecting its form? There is no spirituality in bad music; no piety in singing praises ignorantly, slovenly, untunefully. "Sing ye praises with understanding. " If Timothy was "not to neglect the gift," but to "stir up the gift that was in him," the like exhortation applies to whatever gift God has given us for his service. If only the few can lead, most can follow. The attainment of the art of singing by note, and culture of the voice so as to take part in this delightful part of Christian worship with pleasure to ourselves and profit to others, should he regarded as a far more serious duty than commonly it is. Psalmody is capable of being a most powerful means of religious impression and edification ( Colossians 3:16 ). Above all, let us cultivate the spirit of praise; the joyful, thankful, trustful, adoring piety, which finds its natural utterance in song. If prayer claims the principal place in our worship on earth, by reason of sin, weakness, need, sorrow,— praise brings us nearest to the worship of heaven ( Revelation 5:9-13 ).