Knowing the Bible is the best education life has to offer, for not only is it
the light by which we come to see our Savior and enter into His salvation, it is
by its light that we get insights into all areas of life that other books cannot
give us. If you do research on the origin of music, you will be taken back to
the ancient world and told of instruments on Egyptian hiroglyphics and in
caves. Gen. 4:21 will be quoted about Jubal, the father of all who play the
harp and flute. All of the books will assume that music had its source in man.
Even so scholarly a book as The Guinness Book of Music will tell you that
the earliest surviving hymn text goes back to the 8th century B.C. to a poet in
Corinth. All authorities stop far short of the Biblical record that tells us that
music is eternal because it is a part of the nature of God. It did not have its
origin in man, but in the God who made man, and made him to love music
and singing, for God has enjoyed it for all eternity.
Music and song are as timeless as the nature of God. If you consider God's
singing as sacred music, then sacred music has no beginning, for it is just as
eternal as God is. It was a surprise to me when I first discovered this text in
Zeph. 3:17 which tells us clearly that God delights and rejoices over His
people with singing. I guess I never thought about it before. Man made in
God's image could hardly live without music. It is so basic to His joy and
happiness. But I never considered whether or not God has delight in singing.
When I found this text and gave it some thought, it seemed a very logical
thing to assume that God would love music. He is the source of all music, for
He created man with the gift of creating it, enjoying it, and using it to praise
Him. If He did not enjoy music, it would be a strange thing to want it used in
the worship of His people.
We should know that God loves music, and that He has been singing for
all eternity, even if this text was not in the Bible. But I am delighted it is here,
for it opens up some exciting windows into the nature of our Lord, whom we
praise in song. This text about God singing led me to search the Bible to see if
there is any other evidence that God enjoys the same things that we do. What
I discovered is that all three persons of the Godhead are very happy persons,
and they delight in singing, and in all that is joyful.
We have a terrible misconception about Jesus because of the great
suffering He had to endure to atone for our sin. He was called the man of
sorrows and one acquainted with grief. This label stuck to Jesus, and most of
the artists of the ages pictured Jesus in His agony, and this has been the image
people have had of Him. The larger portrait of the Bible has been ignored,
which is the portrait of Jesus as the happiest man whoever lived. The Lord of
laughter; the life of the party, and the lover of singing. Joy was the dominant
emotion of His life, and it was the joy of eternity that kept Him going to the
cross. Jesus was spirit-filled, and joy is a fruit of the Spirit, which He
displayed constantly.
We are blinded to the bright side of His joyful life by a focus on His tears
and blood, which is truly a vital focus. We can never forget the blood He
sweat in Gethsemane, and that which He shed on Calvary. Our salvation
depends on that shed blood. But let's not lose the life He died to give us-the
life of joy and abundant living-the life He lived Himself. The book of
Hebrews makes it clear that Jesus was histories happiest man. Heb. 1:9
says, "You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God,
your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of
joy." Jesus was anointed with the oil of joy, and was set above all others by
this unique anointing. In plain language, Jesus was the most joy filled person
to ever walk this planet.
Spurgeon said, "I suppose there never lived a happier man than the Lord
Jesus. He was rightly called the man of sorrows, but He might with
unimpeachable truth, have been called the man of joys." It would seem to
follow, that if singing is one of the key ways by which joy is expressed, that
Jesus would, like His heavenly Father, be a singer. And sure enough, the
book of Hebrews reveals Jesus to be just that; like Father, like Son. Just as
God rejoiced over His temple in the Old Testament, and sang songs of joy, so
Jesus in the New Testament sings the praises of His heavenly Father to His
bride the church. We see this revealed in Heb. 2:11-12. So Jesus is not
ashamed to call them brothers. He says, "I will declare your name to my
brothers in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises." Just
before Jesus went into the garden of Gethsemane He sang a song with His
disciples, but this text tells us He sang the praises of God on a regular basis.
James makes an interesting distinction between praying and praising.
Praying tends to be for the negatives of life, and praising for the positives of
life. Listen to James 5:13-14. "Is anyone of you in trouble? He should pray.
Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise." Singing songs of praise is a
sign of a happy heart, and thus, we know God the Father and God the Son are
happy, for they both sing songs of praise. But what about the Holy Spirit?
There is no question about the joy of the Holy Spirit, for He is the spirit of
joy, and the one who produces the fruit of joy in our lives. He is the one who
inspired all the joyful songs of praise in the Bible, and to be filled with the
Spirit is to be filled with joy.
Paul wrote in I Thess. 1:6, "You welcome the message with the joy given
by the Holy Spirit." In Rom. 14:17 he wrote, for the kingdom of God is not a
matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit." Joy is actually another name for the Holy Spirit. In Acts 13:52 we
read, "And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit." All
the songs of praise and joy through history are songs inspired by the Holy
Spirit.
Jesus was a man of joy because He was filled with the Spirit. In Isa. 61 we
see the passage Jesus quoted and fulfilled in His life when the Spirit of God
came upon Him to preach good news to the poor; to bind up the broken
hearted, and to set the captives free. Then it says in verse 3 what He came to
do for those who grieve: "To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of
ashes, the oil of gladness instead of morning, and a garment of praise instead
of despair." The work of the Holy Spirit was to, through Jesus, eliminate the
negative and accentuate the positive, that God's people might be clothed in a
garment of praise. The Trinity is a trio of praise singers. All three persons
of the Godhead are happy, delighted, and joyous singers.
This explains why the Bible is so full of praise. Praise is God's signiture.
No wonder the Psalms have the entire creation singing praises. Everything
God made was made to praise. When anything or anyone ceases to praise
God, it is no longer what God made it to be. It is broken and not functioning
for the purpose for which it was created. When man ceases to praise God, He
is broken and doesn't work. Being saved is to repair that brokenness and
renew the ability to praise.
There is no praise in hell, for hell is the junk yard where all go whose
praise compacity is broken beyond repair, because they did not call upon the
only one who could repair it-the Lord Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit
the praise compacity is restored so that men can again be praisers of God.
Men are never more like God wants them to be then when they are praising
Him. The goal of this life is to get into God's choir which will sing praises
forever. The only way to qualify is to let the Holy Spirit into your life by
opening the door to Jesus Christ. He will give you a song that will never end.
Joy is the emotion that leads to singing, and this is an emotion that we see
in Jesus who was filled with the spirit of joy. When the 72 came back to Jesus
all excited about their power in His name to cast out demons, Jesus said, "I
saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," but He urged them not to rejoice
that the demons submitted to their power, but that their names were written
in heaven. Then Luke 10:21 follows immediately: "At that time Jesus, full of
joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of Heaven and
earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and
revealed them to little children.'"
We get a picture here of the disciples here like little children finding a
room full of new toys. They are so excited and full of joy at the victory of
good over evil, and Jesus is feeling like you and I feel when we see our
children tickled with delight when they receive the gift of new games. Jesus
knows the joy of the parent and grandparent, and He praised God for that
joy. Jesus is a joyful praiser of God. When you have the joy of Jesus you
have the ultimate joy. All other joy is partial, but His is complete. Jesus said
in John 15:11, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that
your joy may be complete." There can be no joy higher than that of Jesus,
for He was the joyest man whoever lived.
The Shepherd who finds the lost sheep calls his friends and neighbors and
says, "Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep." Jesus said there is rejoicing
in heaven over every sinner who repents, but He was doing plenty of rejoicing
on earth as well. It is the same story with the woman who finds her lost coin
and is rejoicing. The Prodigal's father threw a great party with a feast,
music, and dancing because he was so full of joy that his son was restored.
Jesus is joyful beyond words over every person who is saved and restored to
fellowship with God, and this happens hundreds of times everyday. This
means Jesus is in almost perpetual praise in spite of a fallen world. But we
must get back to the first person of the Trinity-the Father. Our text tells us
He is also full of joy, and in that joy He sings over His people.
This is the basis for the great love song called the Song of Songs. The heart
of God is full of love songs for His bride. There is no escaping the reality that
all of life, as we know it, is one great romance. God is the hero and man is the
damsel in distress. Satan is the villain that seeks to spoil the relationship of
God and man. It is a long hard struggle, but the story ends with the wedding
feast of the Lamb. God wins His bride, and the feasting, celebration, and the
songs go on forever. Every story has three parts: a setting; the setting is
upset; and the setting is reset, either successfully, and then there is a happy
ending, or unsuccessfully and there is a sad ending. God's story has a happy
ending with love and singing that lasts forever.
There is so much unfaithfulness on the part of the bride, and thus, so much
judgment that we tend to miss all the joyful scenes of God's delight in His
people. God is a happy God. He is a God in love, and He sings as a lover, and
He rejoices in His bride. I studied all the words for happy and joyful
emotions in the Old Testament, and I discovered that all of them apply to
God. God has a great deal of pleasure and enjoyment as He interacts with
people and His creation. It can be a lot of fun being God. Listen to some of
the evidence. God is always promising Israel He will make them prosper if
they obey Him, and in Duet. 30:9 He says, "The Lord will again delight in you
and make you prosperous just as He delighted in your fathers." The Hebrew
word for delight is the same word for rejoicing, being glad, making mirth,
and being joyful. It is used again in Isa. 62:5, "As a bridegroom rejoices over
his bride, so will your God rejoice over you." God has the same emotion as
the groom who feels he has the girl of his dreams for his own. The word is
used again in Isa. 65:19, "I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my
people."
There are others, but we want to look at just one more that gives us an
insight into the emotions of our Maker. In Psa, 104:31 we read, "The Lord
shall rejoice in His works." God said, after He made the universe, "It is very
good." He was happy with His works just like an artist who gazes on His
finished painting and says, "That is good. It is the best I can do." God was
happy, and no wonder all the angels sang at creation. God was no doubt
leading them, for God sings when He is delighted, and He was delighted in
His works. He will also be delighted in the final heaven when the story of
salvation is complete. So the point is, we will hear God's singing forever, and
we will sing with Him forever. Song will be a part of our eternal life. Music
is forever, for it is a part of God's very being.
Music beautifies sound, and singing beautifies language, and the purpose
of music and singing is to do just that: add beauty to life. It enables us to say
on a higher plain what we cannot communicate in words alone. Poetry is a
step above pros, and poetry to music is a step above that. There is no higher
step of communicating love, joy, and all the emotions, for when we reach the
level of song we are on the highest level, where even God is not revealed to go
any higher. The Song of Songs is saying by its very title, you cannot go higher
than a song to communicate love.
It is also Godlike to rejoice over our works. For all we know God whistled
while He worked, or hummed a tune as He said, "Let there be light." He
enjoyed what He was doing, and when you enjoy your work you have the
potential of singing over your work. The work itself can be a song we offer to
God as a sacrifice of praise. Galen, the famous second century physician, said
of his professional life that he regarded it "As a religious hymn in honor of
the Creator." Life is on the highest level when we can do all we do for the
glory of God. When we do, all of life is a song of praise to God, and this is
what leads God to sing over us.
Maclaren, the great English preacher, wrote in his Expositions of Holy
Scripture, "Zion is called to rejoice in God because God rejoices in her. She
is to shout for joy and sing because God's joy too has a voice, and breaks out
into singing. For every throb of joy in man's heart, there is a wave of
gladness in God's." God loves to sing, and we give Him reason to do so when
we sing and make our life a cause for praise. The Living Bible makes this text
come alive. "Is that a joyous choir I hear? No, it is the Lord Himself exalting
over you in happy song." The questions this raises are many, and we will
have to wait till heaven to have our answers.
1. Does God write His own songs?
2. Does He sing solo, or always as a trio of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
3. Does He have the angels sing backup?
4. Is it recorded so we will be able to listen to God's love songs for His bride?
It is so hard to imagine God singing that most never try for they never see
this text in Zeph. and never explore the joy of God in His people. Spurgeon,
however, usually discovers the gems of the Bible that others pass by. Listen
to his excited comments on this text. "Think of the great Jehovah singins!
Can you imagine it? Is it possible to conceive of the Deity breaking into song:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit together singing over the redeemed? God is so
happy in the love which He bears to His people that He breaks the eternal
silence, and the sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting
a hymn of joy."
It is interesting that Spurgeon would say the sun, moon and stars hear
God's song. The Bible and hymnology are full of this idea that the whole
universe listens to God's song, as if all of its orderly and beauty of movement
is its dance to God's tune. Psa. 148 says the whole universe praises God, and
other Psalms have the trees clapping and the mountains skipping to God's
tune. Jesus even said on Palm Sunday, if the people had not praised Him, the
very rocks would have cried out. That would have really been Christian rock
music had the literal rocks broken into songs of praise for their Creator. We
sing at Christmas, "Angels we have heard on high sweetly singing o'er the
plains, and the mountains in reply echo back their joyous strains." Do the
mountains really sing back in reply to this heavenly song? D.L. Moody, the
great evangelist, took it literally, and he preached a sermon on praise in
which he said, "Did you ever stop to think that the heart of man is the only
thing that does not praise the Lord? The heavens declared His glory, the sun
praises Him, the moon and stars praise Him; as rain falls from heaven it
praises God; all nature praises God-the dumb creature gives Him praise,
and it is only the heart of man that won't praise Him."
Now I know what it means when God says He looks not on the externals
but on the heart. God is looking inside man to see if their is a song of praise
there. That is what matters to God, for if there is praise in a man's heart, he
is alive to God and has great potential. When Samuel went to chose a son of
Jesse as the new king of Israel, he thought for sure the oldest son would be
God's choice. He was big and handsome and seemed a great follow-up to
Saul, who was head and shoulders above most all men. God however rejected
all of the older sons and chose the youngest, which was David. He was just a
mere shepherd boy, but God saw in David what no one else could see.
Everyone saw a mere lad, but God saw a king; a king who would be the
greatest leader of God's people in praise. He wrote most of the songs God's
people sang all through the Old Testament, and all threw the history of the
church up to the last couple of centuries. Many of the popular songs today
are going back to the Psalms, and many Christians have never ceased to sing
the songs of David.
The words of David have gone up in praise to God from all over the world.
God saw the heart of praise in David. He was a man after God's own heart,
for there was a song in his heart. That is what God looks for in all His
children. That is why Paul, who could sing a song even while in stocks in a
dungeon, wrote to the Ephesians and said in Eph. 5:19, "Speak to one another
with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart
to the Lord."
God has a musical heart, and He loves to see a song in the heart of all His
children. He intends to sing with His family of the redeemed forever, and so
one of the best ways to prepare for the heavenly culture is to fill your heart
with songs of praise. That is what God saw in David. Others saw a shepherd
boy, but God saw a king. Don Mcminh, in his book Entering His Presence
writes, "God sings! What a delightful thought! When God thinks about His
love for us, it impels Him to sing. When God wants to rejoice, when He wants
to praise, He choses music to express Himself. Music is a part of the eternal
existence of God; how wonderful that He has given us the joy of music as a
tool to express godliness in our lives." One of the major questions we need to
ask of ourselves is, Does God see a song in my heart? God loves to see a song
there because He is ever looking for partners to sing, for God loves to sing.
