TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
292
B OD’S PEOPLE are a singing people. That is why hymns and psalms have so large a revival is followed by the issue of a new hymn book. Not that tl\e song is confined to the lips and the listeners, for we are bidden to sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord (£ol. 3:16), and to speak to ourselves in psalrps and hymns and spiritual songs, sing ing and making melody in our hearts unto the Lord (Eph. 5:19). Deep within, amid the noise of the affairs of common life, the Lord’s peo ple are to have the melodies of heaven echoing in their hearts. That is not to say that our song will always be in spired by happy circumstances; far from it; ‘‘faith can sing'through days of sorrow.” The Lord’s song is born, not out of circumstances—the things that stand around us, sometimes to uplift us and sometimes to cast us down—but is the song of those who walk in the “ways of the Lord,” whithersoever those ways may lead us. “My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord”—but in all the ways that are His we are to sing, even though His ways seem so diverse from our ways and thoughts. So much of discord is there in the world, so many things in the lives of those around us that strike harsh, jarring notes, that the service of tlje [ This Article was published first in Eng land in The L ife o f Faith.]
Christian witness is to have any real blessing on our fellows, it is not enough that we should merely intel lectually hold the correct views o f doctrine—without which .truly the mu- - sic of an harmonious life Would not be possible—bpt we must translate our knowledge into the music of life in manner, deed, and word. Then is there the song of them that walk in the ways of the Lord. The peril of knowing without doing is as old as the days of the Epistle of St. James. What the cause of Christ needs is, first, more faithful teaching and receiving of the truths of God’s Word; and then, more interpretation of those truths in joyous, loving, sunny lives that are a veritable song of the Lord. Such a life of song inevitably -awakens echoes. Those echoes are re sponsive love. That love will lead to Him who is the Master of all harmony, even the Lord of peace. The need of such lives is the greatest lack of the Christian church. The music of such w ill awaken in other lives chords that have long been stilled. Characteristics of the Song When we turn to the Scriptures we see some of the marks of this song of the' Lord. It is the song of creation, “when the morning stars sang to gether, and all the sons of God shout ed for joy” (Job 38:7). This is the first song of Scripture, and so, by a fa-
child of God is so to live «in the ways of the Lord that his life is a song, echoing the music of the gospel that leads us home. Inward Harmony This song is born of inward har mony.. Ere our lives can so sing, we must know within, that peace of God which is ours when we take up the position that Christ won for us when He made peace for us by the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20). There must be also that sweet harmony of the peace of God which is guarding our hearts from the assaults of evil, and of the fear of life’s' ills. The reason that the lives of many, even of those allied to holy things, are so strident and discordant is that there is inward friction. It may be that they are not enjoying the glad conscious ness of being made right with God; or perchance there is some mental struggle not in the intellect but in the will. A ll the powers and qualities of our being must be centralized in one increasing purpose to hand the life over to God’s keeping, and to set the will to walk in His ways. . . . The doctrines of the Christian faith are the music to which this song is set. To be a singer or a player it is, of course, essential to know the theory of music and the laws of harmony. Yet the theory of music w ill never make a musician, nor w ill familiarity with musical terms make a singer. If our
part in our worship. That is why a
By W. GRIST
"I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. . . . I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God. . .-. Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. . . . Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.. . . My heart shall rejoice, even mine." (Psa. 104:33; Isa. 61:10; John 16:22; Psa. 138:5; Prov. 23:15.)
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs